2ND SEM HONS
CEH 4: BRITISH ROMANTIC LITERATURE
TOPIC:
Biographical sketch of Lord Byron.
Lord
Byron, George Gordon (1788-1823)
Lord Byron was the most famous and widely read poet during the Romantic
period. In fact, during the 1810s and 1820s, Byron was among the most famous
men in all of Europe, if not the entire Western world. Virtually everyone in
Europe and America who was able to read English poetry—or who followed current
English political events and celebrity scandals—was aware of Lord Byron’s work,
life, and public persona. Referred to as “mad, bad and dangerous to know” by
his own wife, Byron was as famous for his epic romantic poems as he was for his
good looks, humor, and decidedly controversial life.
Byron is best known for creating the literary figure of the Byronic
hero. Unlike
many of his Romantic contemporaries, who were largely concerned with depictions
of common people and the natural world, Byron often chose exotic locals and
extreme states of being as the subjects of his poetry. While many
English Romantic poets drew upon their own lives and experiences for
their
poems, Byron used some of the more unflattering aspects of his life
(including his
broken marriage, exile from England, and sexual inclinations) in his
poetry,
without apology. While Byron was adored by much of the English reading
public,
many literary critics and members of the English ruling elite felt that
Byron’s
poems were too radical in terms of his leftist political beliefs, and
that he was
immoral and politically dangerous to English society, especially given
his high
social position.
Lord Byron was born in 1788.
While he was born into an elite British family, Byron was destitute until he
inherited a large fortune and estate from his uncle. During his later
childhood, Byron became quite wealthy and was accepted into the English
aristocracy. Byron’s early life was filled with adventure. He was charming,
witty, intelligent, and famously brooding. Upon reaching adulthood, Byron lived
a life similar to the stereotype of a contemporary rock star. His life was
surrounded by rumor and innuendo, especially concerning his romantic and sexual
escapades. He came upon fame early in his poetic career with the publication of
the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage in 1812. Each
subsequent publication was met with a great deal of critical and popular
attention and he found himself quickly becoming incredibly famous. He traveled
throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, undertook incredible adventures,
romanced countless women (and men), and inspired legions of followers while
angering authority figures throughout the world. He carried on several
long-term friendships, including a particularly meaningful relationship with
the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Over the course of his career, he wrote a novel
fragment that inspired the genre of the romantic vampire novel, served as an
inspiration for the character of Dr. Frankenstein, and composed some of the
most moving and controversial poems in the English language. Byron died of
fever in Greece while fighting in the Greek War of Independence in 1822.
During the course of his rather short life, Byron composed several dozen
now canonical pieces of poetry, including such famous works as Childe
Harold’s
Pilgrimage, Manfred, Darkness, and Don Juan.
While each of these poems were
unique in terms of style and content, Byron’s poetry always advocated on
behalf
of freedom, independence, self-awareness, romantic passion, political
cynicism,
and recognition and understanding of the world beyond the shores of
England.
His poems explored aspects of life that other widely-read writers of his
time
tended to shy away from, including sexuality and the brutal and
senseless nature
of violence and war. Poems like Manfred, which explores the
topics of incest and
suicide, and Don Juan, which reverses the myth of Don Juan and
positions Don
Juan, himself, as one who is helplessly, sexually and romantically
manipulated,
offered insight into personal and political matters that no other
writers explored—
and with unmatched creativity, experimentation, and gusto at that.
While Byron fell out of critical favor in the second half of the 19th
century,
by the early 20th century, many writers, including James Joyce, T.S.
Eliot, and
Virginia Woolf, praised his poems for their originality, lyricism, depth
of emotion
and intellect, and brutal honesty. By the late 20th century, many
literary critics and
even philosophers came to celebrate Byron’s decidedly progressive and
humanitarian political and social beliefs. In fact, many critics argue
that Byron’s
own life was but an extension of his poetry and that he, in essence,
lived his life
in accordance with the ideals of the spectacular characters about which
he often
wrote.