The Cold Earth Slept Below - COMPLETE

Shelley

Context - personal

• Late wife Harriet, who took her own life when pregnant with his child

• Mournful nature debatable - he eloped with Mary Shelley a few weeks later

• Was not intended for publication

Context - Historical

‘the cold earth slept below’

‘Earth’ is a generalised term, everything is affected by the discovery of the dead lover

‘cold’

repetition of this adjective several times throughout the poem

‘night’ ‘shone’

• juxtaposition. the moon’s light does not physically disappear until it has disappeared

• natural world continues

‘breath of night’

• personification.

• Speaker could be personifying the night’s ‘breath’ because of his dead lover, clinging onto hope that something is alive amongst the ‘fields of snow’ and ‘caves of ice’?

‘breath of night’ ‘like death did flow’

• ‘flow’ = \Harriet drowned herself.

• ‘breath’ ‘death’ = juxtaposition. contrasting life with death.

• ‘night’ and ‘death’ both associated with death. imagery of death overwhelms imagery of life.

‘beneath the sinking moon’

• daytime will soon be arriving - elopement with Mary - nature will progress as life does

• no source of light. emotional turmoil - no emotional light? light (dead lover) taken away?

• moon as a sign of femininity

‘birds did rest’

• nature, one of the only natural imagery associated with joy .

• life goes on

‘breast’ ‘moon’

• feminine imagery

‘thine eyes glow’d in the glare of the moon’s dying light’

‘moon’s dying’ - femininity dying

‘thine eyes glow’d’ - personal address to the dead lover. This was never intended for publication.

‘in the glare’ - nature as cruel

‘fen-fire’s beam’

• fen-fire: will’o’the’wisp.

• They were associated with danger and death.

• ‘beam’ juxtaposition. finding the joy in death. could connect to why the mournful nature of the poem is questioned.

‘strings’

• delicate ‘strings’

‘moon made thy lips pale’

‘moon’ = also represents the natural progression of time.

Avoiding blame ‘hideous catastrophe… there would have been little to regret’

‘the wind made thy bosom chill’

avoiding blame

power of nature?

supernatural power of nature

‘bitter breath’

contrasts death topic of the stanza

plosives, shows anger at the sky having ‘breath’

personification is almost supernatural