The main images of "To a Skylark"
"To a Skylark" is one of the representative lyric poems of the British poet Shelley. Shelley and the poem "To the Skylark" vividly express the poet's yearning for light and pursuit of ideals through the image of the skylark. Skylark is a kind of bird, shaped like a sparrow but slightly larger. It lives in the wilderness and grasslands. It nests on the ground and likes to fly high. It often rises from its "territory" and goes straight into the sky. It calls and flies higher and higher. high.
Because of this unique habit, the skylark is often chosen as the object of praise by poets. However, different poets write about skylarks, and they have different feelings about them. For example, Wordsworth praised the skylark for being loyal to the sky and its homeland, but the skylark praised by Shelley "flyed up and up again, all the way into the sky", not only not nostalgic for home but also despising the ground. This image of a skylark is not simply a skylark in nature, but the poet's ideal self-image or the image carrier of the poet's ideal. Shelley repeatedly expressed in the poem that he was not as good as the skylark and did not know how to approach its joy. In fact, the poet and the skylark are similar in many aspects: they both pursue light, despise the ground, and both yearn for the ideal world. The only difference is that the poet painfully felt the huge gap between ideal and reality, and this gap does not exist for Skylark. One side is full of joy and joy, and the other side is sour and bitter. In fact, the two are opposite but connected. Of the two, constant ascension is the dominant aspect.
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. This poem is very skillful in artistic expression. The rhythm and words of the poem are so perfect that they have always been praised by people.