To a Skylark Themes

In "To a Skylark," our speaker wants to know and say everything about this theme. He wants to know the secrets of nature, to know what birds feel when they sing. He's fascinated by the way that nat...

One of the key ideas in "To a Skylark" is the comparison between the poet and his writing and the skylark and its song. Again and again, the speaker imagines the skylark as a kind of natural artist...

Like a lot of speakers in Romantic poems, this guy feels things really deeply. And a lot of what he feels is really sad. Now we don't mean sadness like depression here, at least not exactly. It's m...

If humans and all their songs are sad, then the skylark in "To a Skylark" is a creature of pure joy. As the speaker imagines it, this bird doesn't know anything about feeling old or tired or lonely...

Beyond all of the specifics of joy and sadness, we think there's a feeling of pure awe running through "To a Skylark." Shelley's speaker is just so alive to everything around him. He's so fascinate...