By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Percy Shelley (1792-1822) is one of the greatest of the ‘second generation’ Romantic poets who also numbered John Keats and Lord Byron among them. And ‘To a Skylark’ is one of Shelley’s best-loved and most anthologised poems. But what is the meaning of this poem?
Rather than offer the poem followed by an analysis, perhaps it would make more sense to go through ‘To a Skylark’ stanza by stanza and offer a running commentary on this quintessentially Romantic poem. So, here goes: