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Read Wordsworth’s and Shelley’s poems ‘To a Skylark’ and Hughes’ poem ‘Skylarks’. Discuss the similarities and differences in the poets’ presentation of, and attitude to, the birds.

There are a number of similarities and differences in Wordsworth’s, Shelley’s and Hughes’ presentation of, and attitude to the birds through form, diction and imagery.

The first line in Wordsworth’s poem is about an ‘Ethereal minstrel!’ and a ‘pilgrim of the sky!’. This tells of a medieval singer who roams with a purpose. Wordsworth uses these to apostrophise the lark. When these lines are combined with others throughout the poem it becomes apparent that the lark is used as a metaphoric visual aid. This is shown with the apparent dichotomy between earth and sky. The lines, ‘Or, while the wings aspire’ and ‘Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground’, suggest that even though the lark aspires to even greater heights literally and spiritually its nest is still on the ground and so it must come back down. The bird could therefore be seen as a pilgrim of the sky. However the question ‘Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?’, also shows the way that the lark despises the earth. The line, ‘Type of the wise who soar, but never roam’, can again be linked to ‘aspire’. This line contrasts with the beginning of the poem, as it is now saying that soaring is to rise, whereas roam is to move around but not to rise. Roaming is therefore seen as a negative attribute that prevents humans from aspiring.

The poem continues with two significant paradoxes, ‘A privacy of glorious light’ and ‘a flood Of harmony’. The former has links to religion as glorious light suggests Heaven. The latter suggests a musical link, as it illustrates the larks singing. This mention of Heaven links into the basis of the poems metaphor of human life. It says that in fact ‘Heaven and Home’ are ‘kindred points’, and so they are not actually opposed, but they are linked. The words ‘flood’ and ‘pour’ in the poem normally are associated with water, thus showing how the lark’s music flows and how much of it there is.  

Wordsworth’s poem is therefore presented as an apostrophe to a skylark that is quite rhythmic due to it being largely iambic pentameter. It is also written in a very traditional form with a strict rhythm and rhyme structure that suggests that it is pre 20^th century. This is confirmed by the moral, philosophical view of lark, as it is shown to be a metaphor and moral for human life.

As well as sharing the same title (‘To a Skylark’), Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem also shares a similar way of presenting the lark. Composed five years before Wordsworth’s poem, this poem is also written in a very traditional form with much archaic diction. It has a maintained stanza form throughout and is as, if not more, archaic shown by quotations such as, ‘hail to thee’ and ‘thou’. In the second stanza, although there is no reference to a bird, the language used suggests an immense scale similar to that used in Wordsworth’s presentation of the lark’s ‘flood’ of harmony or song. Quotations such as, ’Higher still and higher’ and ‘springest’, show this similarity.

Similar to Wordsworth’s poem, Shelley begins with exclamation with, ‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit!’. Again although much more subtle and less significant, this can be linked to religion as in Wordsworth’s poem. This could suggest that the skylark is again being used as a metaphor. This is strongly enforced by the second line of, ‘Bird thou never wert’, suggesting that the bird is a spirit. Again the excess and link to water is shown in this stanza with ‘pourest thy full heart’, illustrating the huge amount of music the lark brings. This is also shown in the sixth stanza with the line, ‘The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed’. This line  means that the amount of voice and song that the lark has can be compared with the amount of moon light there is. This can also be compared with Wordsworth’s ‘flood of harmony’. This again illustrates the similarity between the presentation, and attitude to the lark by the two poets.

The line ‘Like a star of Heaven’ again shows the religious link. In the context that it is in, it refers to the lark being superior to Earth and unseen, when ‘In the broad daylight’. This line also again shows similarities to Wordsworth’s poem with his ‘privacy of glorious light’. However the religion is less obvious than in Wordsworth’s poem.

In the seventh stanza of the poem the question, ‘What thou art we know not; What is most like thee; is attempted to be answered in the following five stanzas. This is known, as each of the stanzas begins in a similar way, ‘Like a poet hidden’ and ‘Like a glow-worm golden’. However each attempt to answer the question using simile’s fails. While Shelley cannot compare anything with the lark, showing its superiority and how what it has is unattainable by humans, Wordsworth is decided about the lark as the poem leads to the moral that the natural world is superior to the human world. Shelley ends the poem with the line, ‘The world should listen then - as I listening now’. This shows how much he believes that the lark is superior to humans as he wants everyone to listen to them, but also how he wants to ‘aspire’ to the superiority of the lark.

Both poems therefore do not see the lark as a bird, but as a metaphor and both give moral lessons to the reader. However, Wordsworth’s poem does have more physical connections to the lark, shown by lines such as, ‘heart and eye’ (although this is a metaphor for emotion) and ‘quivering wings’. This therefore shows that both poems are based on the same idea, but they go off in different philosophical ways; Wordsworth reaches a clear conclusion but Shelley does not.

The final poem, ‘Skylarks’, was written by Ted Hughes. One can see that it is written in an irregular form with the lines spread out across the page and there seems not to be any archaism, instead there is a more aggressive style of diction. One can therefore suggest that the poem was written in the 20^th century, as the traditional form seems to have been abandoned.

The lark is presented and acknowledged much more as a physical being than as a metaphor for human life. This is shown by quotations such as, ‘Barrel-chested’ and ‘muscle’. These quotations also show that the lark uses its two features to take it higher into the sky and helps it to fight against gravity in the process. The poem is split into six sections, with the first telling of the movement of the lark and its struggle against ‘Earth’s centre’ or gravity. Neither Wordsworth’s or Shelley’s poems told of the lark in ‘reality’ specifically moving. The significance of the breaking up of the lines on the presentation of the lark, is that it gives a greater impact of each of the lines, illustrating the colossal struggle of the lark.

In the final section, the line, ‘They flare and glide off low over grass, then up to land on a wall-top, crest up’, is much more precise compared to Wordsworth’s lark that, dropped ‘into at will’, when the ‘earth gives them the O.K.’. The poem ends with the line, ‘Conscience perfect’, implying that this is the state of mind that humans want to aspire to.

Hughes’ poem uses a much more aggressive vocabulary compared to Wordsworth’s and Shelley’s poems. Words such as, ‘whippet’, ’arrow’, ‘struggle’, ‘rocketing’, ‘bullet’ and ‘thrash’ all show this. This aggression is just part of the modern diction of the poem, which is why the other poets did not use such vocabulary. This type of vocabulary illustrates the highly unorthodox view of the lark, as due to the language used, it could be compared with birds of prey as indeed Hughes does when he says ‘Crueller then owl or eagle’. The ‘hunting arrow’ that is mentioned can be compared with the line, ‘Keen as the arrows’, from Shelley’s poem. Both of these mentions of arrows illustrate the speed of flight and the purpose of it.

Overall, there are more similarities between Wordsworth’s and Shelley’s poems than there are differences. This is due to them both being composed before the 20^th century, and so they are both written in a very traditional form. However there are many differences when comparing Hughes’ poem to Wordsworth’s and Shelley’s poems. Again this is due to the date that it was composed, as it was a 20^th century poem and so took a much more modern view. The pre 20^th century poems both presented the lark as a metaphor for human life and both showed a link between ‘Heaven and Home’. In the case of Hughes’ 20^th century poem, it was clearly composed in a very unorthodox way, and it talked about the bird more physically and in reality. This was one of the main differences in the presentation and attitude to the lark. (1,505 words)