Articles and Commentaries by Aden Lee, Skylark Press Studio Shelley's Skylark | Page 2

The Skylark’s Divine Song
A Commentary on Percy Bysshe Shelley’s To a Skylark
During the summer of 1820, the British poet Percy Bysshe
Shelley was on an evening stroll in the Italian city of
Livorno when he suddenly heard the singing of a skylark.
Captivated and inspired by the skylark’s song, Shelley
wrote To a Skylark, one of the most riveting and
technically-accomplished poems in English literature.
Shelley’s poem was written during a period known as the
Romantic era. Art from this period was strongly
influenced by an intellectual movement known as
Romanticism which glorified nature, along with an
individual’s emotions and imagination. Focusing mainly on
the interaction between man and nature, Shelley’s poem
exemplifies two dominant themes in Romantic poetry:
nature’s innate divinity, and its edifying, inspirational effect
on the individual.
In twenty-one cinquains (five-line stanzas), Shelley extols
the skylark’s jubilant song and identifies the soaring
skylark as a divine “spirit” and eloquent “poet”.
Concluding the poem, Shelley implores the skylark to
“teach” him “half” of its “gladness”. Inspired by the
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