“Music, When Soft Voices Die” Introduction

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“Music, When Soft Voices Die” Summary

“Music, When Soft Voices Die” Themes

• 

  Love, Death, and Memory

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Music, When Soft Voices Die”

• Lines 1-2

  Music, when soft voices die,
  Vibrates in the memory—

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 3-4

  Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
  Live within the sense they quicken.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-6

  Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
  Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 7-8

  And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
  Love itself shall slumber on.

  

  

  

  

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“Music, When Soft Voices Die” Symbols

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  Roses

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“Music, When Soft Voices Die” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Parallelism

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Sibilance

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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“Music, When Soft Voices Die” Vocabulary

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• Odours
• Rose leaves
• Heaped
• Belovèd's
• Thy/Thou
• Art
• Slumber

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Music, When Soft Voices Die”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Music, When Soft Voices Die” Speaker

“Music, When Soft Voices Die” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Music, When Soft Voices Die”

More “Music, When Soft Voices Die” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Poet's Life — A biography of Shelley from the Poetry Foundation. 

  • Shelley's Posthumous Rise to Fame — An article written on the 200th anniversary of Shelley's death. 

  • A Look at British Romanticism — The Poetry Foundation's introduction to one of the most important movements in English literature. 

  • A Documentary on Shelley's Life — A 2012 Write Like documentary looking at Shelley's upbringing and literary accomplishments.

  • A Reading of the Poem — Listen to the poem read aloud. 

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley

  • England in 1819

  • Love’s Philosophy

  • Mutability

  • Ode to the West Wind

  • Ozymandias

  • Song to the Men of England

  • Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples

  • The Question

  • To a Skylark