BAUDRIN

Louis
TL2

Analyse du pome A Bridal Song Percy Bysshe Shelley

1- Find in the poem the words meaning :
a. souvrir : unbar
b. sallumer, sembraser : kindle
c. vitreux : glassy
d. pleurer : weep
e. la plus sacr : holiest
f. la rose : dew
g. le dlice : delight
h. se hter : haste
i. vif, rapide : swift
j. la fuite : flight
k. lutins, farfadets : sprites
l. laube : dawn
2- The scene takes place at sunset, when The golden gates of Sleep unbar (v.1).
Moreover Shelley wrote about dew (v.6), about a swift hour (v.10), which oft
renews (v.11) and even about Night, Darkness, stars, absence of the
sun .All those things are clearly indicating that the scene takes place at the very
short moment when the sun disappears in the sky and the darkness just begins
to take up the space.
3- Their image (v.3) refers to Strength and Beauty (v.2). Thy stars refers to
the Night (v.5) and thy holiest dew to Darkness (v.6). We can conclude
there are a lot of personifications in that poem, which reinforce the idea of
otherworldly poetry and also of the importance of Nature. We can already declare
it is a romantic poem, which links Love (Bridal), Nature (Darkness, Night)
and Fairies, sprites and angels.
4- The grammatical subject of smiled (v.7) is the inconstant moon.
5- The moon is literally inconstant, as she always changes between harvest moon
and its other phases but the moon is also a feminine symbol. That way
inconstant moon means that the Bride of the song could be unstable, since she
appears to be unhappy, as she never smiled.
6- The moon (the Brides alter ego) and the groom could be the two elements of
that pair so true. It appears to be a reference to the true love theyre supposed
to have.

7- The expression Fairies, sprites and angels means to imply there is a magic
world in this poem. Its supposed to make us marveled at this love story but also
in that context it is an allusion to the magic of the wedding, which the Bride
(her) shouldnt lose.
8- There is the lexical field of love between a bride and a groom ( Bridal,
together, pair)
9- In the words Keep her, her stands for the Bride. That way magic, fairies,
sprites and angels should be staying by her, even though the future is
uncertain.
10-I think we can say the future is uncertain. On the one hand, Oh joy (v.16)
indicates that everything is going to be all right. On the other hand, Oh fear
seems to be an indication of a risk during the night, during the absence of the
sun. We can take it as a metaphor. We can just imagine the Bride is just married
and she doesnt know what is going to happen next. Would she be happy? Or
unhappy?
11-Only the title gives us information about the metaphoric sense of the poem, this
peaceful sunset seems to bring happiness to the couple, even though this s a
swift hour. However there really is a risk, which appears in the second stanza. It
creates incertitude. No-one knows what is going to happen to this marriage.
Would it work or not? So stress and fear are to notice in the second stanza.
12-In the first stanza, the poet develops a kind of peaceful stress. Even though there
is a heterometry, it seems regular with peaceful sounds like ther for together
or weather or light in delight and flight. In the second stanza, the verses are
shorter, there are exclamation points and the words at the end of each verse are
on the side short , on the other side have a pejorative meaning like done,
long, wrong.
13-At the beginning we face the sunset and the peaceful night, which imply through
Nature a true new love. Toward the end, a sense of desperation is portrayed as
the speaker does not wish to wake up and to face the real world. So we can say,
incertitude is prevailing in that second stanza. In my opinion, this is a romantic
poem about the incertitude of a just married Bride, who doesnt know if she will
be happy. The night (maybe a reference to the honeymoon) is peaceful but would
it be the same at Dawn, in the morning, when the sleeper is forced to face reality.