when we two parted

Name: Hoang Thi Huyen Trang

Class: 08CNA08

The Analysis of “When We Two Parted-

George Gordon Byron”

“When we two parted” is a poem of George Gordon Byron. Byron was a

romantic poet, his writings develops a Romantic style as distinctive and as

influential as Wordsworth’s works, one of the most representative romantic

writers. Byron’s romantic subjectivity defines itself in spectacular terms; this

subjectivity has been criticized as too theatrical by John Keats. But for other

poets like Baudelaire, that theatrical style defined Byron’s greatness as a

lyric poet. Lord Byron has a wonderful collection of poetic works; he started

writing in 1806 to his death in 1824. Through these years he made a lot of

famous works such as “Child Harold’s Pilgrimage”, “Don Juan” or

“Manfred”. The main characteristic of Byron’s poems is its strength and

masculinity, combined in a lot of cases with irony. In the case of the poem

“When we two parted” written in 1808 and published in 1813 in “The

poetical works of Lord Byron” is a poem of heart broken, expressing strong

feelings in a simple but full of meaning vocabulary, such as in other poems

like “So we’ll no go more a roving”. This poem is about the love, first, and

later the hate a man feels towards who was his beloved because she left him.

It’s a very typical Romantic poem, typical of a Romantic writer like Lord

Byron, who expresses his feelings of love, a typical issue of Romanticism.

When We Two Parted (1808)

When we two parted

In silence and tears

Half broken hearted

To sever for years

Pale grew thy cheek and cold

Colder thy kiss

Truly that hour foretold

Sorrow to this

The dew of the morning

Sunk chill on my brow

It felt like the warning

Of what I feel now

Thy vow are all broken

And light is thy fame

I hear thy name spoken

And share in its shame

They name thee before me

A knell to my ear

Shudder comes o’er me

Why were thou so dear?

They know not I knew thee

Who knew thee too well