The Library of Entertainment: Handbook

by John Chilton Scammell

1. Where does the skylark remain while singing?

2. Which of the numerous similes that Shelley uses do you think most appropriate in a description of the skylark?

3. What are the qualities of the skylark's song which make it so famous?

4. To what does Shelley ascribe the unexcelled beauty of the bird's music?

5. Is the skylark a native of America? (See encyclopedia.)

6. Compare this with Wordsworth's "To a Skylark," XII, 340, in language and style, and in spirit.

7. "The Ode to the West Wind" and "The Cloud" are especially characteristic of Shelley in his loftier flights of imaginative beauty. Compare them with Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn," VII, 381, 383. Which of these is most vivid; which most musical?

8. "Arethusa" and "The Invitation," are among his more vigorous light verse.

9. Compare the powerful sonnet, "England in 1819," with Milton's sonnet "On His Blindness," IX, 119; and with Wordsworth's sonnets, XII, 353, 354.