The Light of Memory

In his poem “When the Lamp Is Shattered,” Percy Bysshe Shelley employs conditional structures, poetic diction, and figurative language to portray the complex, lost love between himself and his implied lover. Shelley commences the poem with conditional clauses, first beginning each stanza with the term “when” to indicate a condition that then leads to an outcome. By utilizing this conditional structure, Shelley lyrically conveys the loss of a loved one’s memory and the futility of human desire. In these first few stanzas, Shelley masterfully equips a conditional syntax structure to provide parallelism and organization in his conveyance of lost love between himself and his lover. His metaphorical language, indicating a broken lamp, rainbow, and lute, are symbolic instruments of his own love. The lamp, rainbow, and lute refer to elements that he utilizes to show affection to his lover. However, a loss is experienced when he loses his lover, and the instruments break. 

Withal, poetic diction can be found in every interstice of the poem, decorating each line to express Shelley’s heartbroken, forlorn state of love between him and his swain. Shelley transforms simple, everyday instances into poetic language. For instance, in stanza 2, Shelley compares his broken spirit and relationship to the lonely chimes of wind through a broken jail cell. By connecting his broken relationship to the lonely conditions of a cell, Shelley poetically hints at his despondency and morose state. Furthermore, in stanzas 3 and 4, Shelley expands on his fragmented composition through intricate retellings of his current plight. In stanza 3, Shelley uses inventive ways to allude to his shattered love, stating that love was the first to leave a metaphorical bird nest, illustrating the fragility of affection. This further highlights Shelley’s complicated, broken relationship with his lover, indicating that although their relationship was once strong, unfortunate circumstances resulted in the breakage of their bond. Additionally, poetic language is amplified in stanza 4. In the last few lines, Shelley uses the passage of time to lyrically conclude his poem. He hints that through time, the broken shells of love learn to heal, as the sun shines even in winter skies and laughter exists despite cold winds. 

Moreover, Shelley employs figurative language in his poem to amplify his expression of his and his lover’s broken relationship. Specifically, personification is used in various instances to convey the dejected state of Shelley’s relationship. In line 11, Shelly states that the heart echoes for love. Yet, his ruined spirit cannot express his desires as a result of his swain’s reckless abandonment of him. Further, Shelley personifies the heart in line 17, recounting a time when “hearts have mingled.” This line refers to Shelly and his lover’s past condition, returning to when Shelly was accompanied by his lover’s affection. This use further exacerbates his current condition, where a mere broken heart exists in lieu of two. As such, through his use of conditional structure, poetic diction, and figurative language, Shelley conveys the complicated lost relationship between himself and his lover.

Works Cited 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "When the Lamp is Shattered." The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by Thomas Hutchinson, Oxford University Press, 1904.