Walks in Beauty

Perfection in Byron's "She Walks in Beauty"

George Gordon, Lord Byron was a British poet and a founding leader of the Romanticism in literature. Byron's works are infused with his dichotomous persona. Byron has been described as, "[dark] and brilliant, melancholy and vivacious, overtly sexual and sexually ambiguous [whose] shadowy side…has attained the stature of such dangerously attractive figures as Casanova, the Marquis de Sade, and Rasputin" (Pesta 59). "She Walks in Beauty," one of Byron's most well-known poems, reflects the paradoxical nature of his persona, creating a balance between opposing forces through the use of imagery.

Byron was notorious for his sexual exploits. Lady Caroline Lamb, one of his lovers, once famously described the poet as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," a description that was further emphasized through "his compulsive love affairs with women and boys; his drinking and excess; [and] the scandalous liaison with...
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