When We Two Parted (1816) - Poetry - English

Facts about the poet (Lord Byron)

• He was a romantic poet Born on 1788.

• He was considered by many people the first celebrity.

• After having a false child with his sister, he was married to Annabella Milbanke. They weren’t together for long.

• He moved to Lake Geneva where he spent time with Mary Shelley, her half sister, Claire Clairmont and Percy Byssche Shelley.

• He fathered Clairmont’s child and died in 1824 of a fever in Greece.

Summary of the poem

• It describes a relationship ending and focuses on the narrator’s feelings of bitterness, regret and loss.

• It also focuses on the narrator’s difficulty to share his pain as the relationship he was in was illicit.

• The end of the poem explores the narrator looking to the future. He has a hard time trying to think about how he would feel different to the way he did.

Feelings presented in the poem

• Mourning

• Shame

• Resentment (Displeasure for someone)

• Longing

(They demonstrate the difficulty that’s faced when a relationship ends. Even when someones has left you, you may still have feelings for them.)

Structure of the poem

• Written as an octet (eight lines in each stanza).

• Clear ABAB rhyme scheme.

(The stability of the form is contrasted with the narrator’s feelings of loss and confusion and his inability to overcome his pain.)

• Stanza three is where the narrator repeats and rhymes ‘me’ with ‘me’ in the first half and then ‘thee‘ with ‘thee‘ in the second half.

(Byron uses simple repetition to make the poem intentionally jarring and to create a physical divide in the poem and between him and his lover.)

• Controlled

(Gives a sense that the poet has carefully considered this response. He moves between the past, present and future in a controlled way.)

• Cyclical structure

(The repetition of ‘In silence and tears’ at both ends of the poem gives it a cyclical structure. It could show that the poet is unable to move on.)

Quotes linking with the theme of death.

• ‘Pale' (cheeks) and ‘cold’ (kisses)

(Almost makes it sound like his lover has died.)

• ‘Knell’

(Lines 17 - 18 - ‘They name thee before me / A knell in mine ear’ imply that the sound of his lover reminds him of death. The term ‘knell’ is linked with the ringing of a funeral bell.)

Examples of presentation of loss and separation.

• Dark Language

• (Byron subverts tropes (recurring themes) of love poetry.

• We would expect that his lover’s cheeks might be flushed but instead they are ‘pale’ and her kisses grow ‘colder’.

• Byron creates an exaggerated sense of loss for his reader using dictation (choice of words). The reader might be shocked by his darker use of language.)

• Pronouns

(Byron uses pronouns to establish the separation between them. The collective ‘we’ is only used twice in the poem: once at the beginning and once at the end. ‘Me’ and ‘thee’ are then used throughout the rest of the poem to emphasise his emotional distance from his lover.)

Quotes linking with time

• ‘long, long’ - Repetition

(Line 23 suggests that he cannot imagine feeling this way.)

• ‘Long years’ - Exaggeration

(At the end of the poem, the narrator imagines their reunion after ‘long years’.)

Quotes linking with anger

• ‘Thy vows are all broken’.

• ‘That thy heart could forget? Thy spirit deceive’.

• ‘Long. long shall I rue thee’.

(These lines build up a sense that the narrator is resentful of his lover, and feels like he has been left unjustly. He uses the word ‘rue' to show that the relationship wasn’t worth the pain he feels now.)

Quotes linking with secrecy

• ‘In secret we met - In silence I grieve.’ (Lines 25 and 26).

(This shows that the narrator can’t share his pain with others.)

Comparisons to other poems

Neutral tones

(Differences:

• Has a muted tone rather than Byron’s dramatic tone

• Uses natural imagery

Similarities:

• Circular structure

• Another narrator stuck in a painful situation

• Uses death imagery to describe his lover

• Ominous and foreboding language)

Porphyria’s lover

(Differences:

• The use of language around death

Similarities:

• Rigid form to contrast the narrators uncontrolled mental state.)