As follows:
"To a Skylark" is one of Shelley's masterpieces of lyric poetry. The poem uses romantic techniques to enthusiastically praise the skylark and express the yearning for joy, light, freedom and ideals.
The whole poem has 21 stanzas, which can be divided into five levels. The first level (stanzas 1-2) summarizes the characteristics of the skylark flying high and singing happily, and praises the skylark as a "joyful spirit". The second level (verses 3-7) specifically describes the characteristics of the skylark flying high and singing happily. In the early morning, the skylark is flying in the bright light. Although it is invisible, its joyful strong voice can be heard. Three natural paragraphs are used to praise the beauty of the skylark's cry.
The third level (verses 8 to 20) uses a series of concrete metaphors such as poets, girls, fireflies, roses, etc. to summarize the unique aesthetic experience brought by the skylark's singing; and interprets the skylark's song The reason why the sound is sweet is that it is always cheerful, never troubled, and always full of love.
Contrasting the distress that humans often suffer from "looking forward and backward" and "things disturbing themselves", the poet concludes: The joy of the skylark lies in despising the dust. The fourth level (verse 21) expresses the willingness to imitate the joy of the skylark, sing joyful songs with one's own harmonious and fiery passion, and bring joy to the whole world.
The image of the skylark in the poem is not purely a skylark in nature, but the poet's ideal self-image or the poet's ideal image carrier.
The poet and the skylark are similar in many aspects: they both pursue light, pursue the sublime, and yearn for the ideal world. The only difference is that the poet painfully felt the gap between ideal and reality, but this gap does not exist for Skylark. It can be seen from the entire tone of the poem that although Shelley feels the pain of distant ideals, he still transcends sentimentality with a rising positive sentiment.
"To a Skylark" is a poem written by the British poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1820.
"To the Skylark" is a lyric poem with 21 stanzas in total. It starts with praise and ends with exclamation, with clear layers and rigorous structure. It can be roughly divided into six or seven short paragraphs. There is no place in the whole poem where the skylark is not mentioned, and at the same time, there is no place where Shelley's self is not mentioned. The skylark becomes the poet's idealized self-portrait. While Shelley vividly depicted the skylark with his unique artistic conception, he also wrote about his own spiritual realm, aesthetic ideals and artistic ambitions with full passion.