George Gordon Lord Byron 1788 1824 The most

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788 -1824) § § The most widely recognized of all the Romantic poets in his lifetime. The French critic Hippolyte Taine: „the greatest and most English of these artists; he is so great and so English that from him alone we shall learn more truths of his country and of his age than from all the rest together. ” from History of English Literature, 1850’s Influence upon Balzac, Stendhal, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Melville, painter Delacroix, composers Beethoven, Berlioz His influence began to diminish due to the immorality of his poetry and scandalous entries in his journals („Close thy Byron; open thy Goethe” --Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus—The tailor re-tailored 1834) Of his contemporaries only Shelley thought highly of him

• • Descended from two aristocratic families (grandfather nicknamed „Foulweather Jack”) Father wasted his money, spent the fortunes of two wealthy wives Mother was a Scotswoman, the descendant of lawless English lairds Father died when he was three, brought up by his mother in near poverty in Aberdeen; taught Calvinism as a child Made sixth Lord Byron at the age of ten when his great uncle died; sent to Harrow School and then Cambridge Had a deformed foot; tried to compensate by excelling in boxing, fencing, horsemanship and swimming Spent money unwisely, got into debt First volume of poems published in 1807 Hours of Idleness; harsh reception by Edinburgh Review; in response Byron wrote English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, a satire on Scott, Wordsworth and Coleridge

§ § § § Set out on a tour through Portugal and Spain to Malta, Albania, Greece and Asia Minor in 1809 with his close friend John Cam Hobhouse Soon after his publication of Childe Harold after his return to England he „Awoke one morning and found himself famous” Became briefly politically active, supported Catholic Emancipation To escape Lady Caroline Lamb, married Annabella Milbanke, one daughter, Augusta Ada (who later collaborated with Charles Babbage); separated after one year Left England forever in 1816 due to scandal surrounding his name Long-term relationship with Teresa Guiccioli in Italy Died while fighting in the Greek war for independence; considered national hero in Greece

„There are but two sentiments to which I am constant —a strong love of liberty, and a detestation of cant. ” –from a letter to his friend Lady Blessington

„Byron cultivated a skepticism about established systems of belief that, in its restlessness and defiance, expressed the intellectual and social ferment of his era. ” –Norton Anthology

„Byron’s chief claim to be considered an arch-Romantic is that he provided the age with what Taine called its ‚ruling personage; that is, the model that contemporaries invest with their admiration and sympathy. ’ This personage is the ‚Byronic hero. ’ He is first sketched in the opening canto of Childe Harold…in Manfred, he is an alien, mysterious, and gloomy spirit, superior in his passions and powers to the common run of humanity, whom he regards with disdain. He harbors the torturing memory of an enormous, nameless guilt that drives him toward an inevitable doom. And he exerts an attraction on other characters that is the more compelling because it involves their terror at his obliviousness to ordinary human concerns and values…the literary descendants of the Byronic hero include Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick, and the hero of Pushkin’s great poem Eugene Onegin. ” –Norton Anthology

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Childe Harold was he hight: —but whence his name And lineage long, it suits me not to say; Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame, And had been glorious in another day: But one sad losel soils a name for aye, However mighty in the olden time; Nor all that heralds rake from coffined clay, Nor florid prose, nor honeyed lines of rhyme, Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.

Childe Harold basked him in the noontide For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run, sun, Nor made atonement when he did amiss, Disporting there like any other fly, Had sighed to many, though he loved but Nor deemed before his little day was done one, One blast might chill him into misery. And that loved one, alas, could ne'er be his. But long ere scarce a third of his passed by, Ah, happy she! to 'scape from him whose kiss Worse than adversity the Childe befell; Had been pollution unto aught so chaste; He felt the fulness of satiety: Then loathed he in his native land to dwell, Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss, Which seemed to him more lone than And spoiled her goodly lands to gild his eremite's sad cell. waste, V. Nor calm domestic peace had ever deigned to taste.

And now Childe Harold was sore sick at The Childe departed from his father's hall; heart, It was a vast and venerable pile; And from his fellow bacchanals would flee; So old, it seemed only not to fall, 'Tis said, at times the sullen tear would Yet strength was pillared in each massy start, aisle. But pride congealed the drop within his e'e: Monastic dome! condemned to uses vile! Apart he stalked in joyless reverie, Where superstition once had made her And from his native land resolved to go, den, And visit scorching climes beyond the sea; Now Paphian girls were known to sing and smile; With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe, And monks might deem their time was come agen, And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below. If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men. VII.

And none did love him: though to hall and bower Yet ofttimes in his maddest mirthful mood, He gathered revellers from far and near, Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold's brow, He knew them flatterers of the festal hour; As if the memory of some deadly feud The heartless parasites of present cheer. Or disappointed passion lurked below: Yea, none did love him—not his lemans dear— But this none knew, nor haply cared to know; But pomp and power alone are woman's care, For his was not that open, artless soul And where these are light Eros finds a That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow; feere; Nor sought he friend to counsel or condole, Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by Whate'er this grief mote be, which he could glare, not control. And Mammon wins his way where seraphs IX. might despair.

Inspired by Mrs. Anne Beatrix Wilmot Where thoughts serenely sweet express, She walks in beauty, like the night How pure, how dear their dwelling. Of cloudless climes and starry skies; place. And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light And on that cheek, and o’er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, Which heaven to gaudy day denies. The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, One shade the more, one ray the less, A mind at peace with all below, Had half impaired the nameless grace A heart whose love is innocent! Which waves in every raven tress, (1814) Or softly lightens o’er her face;

When we two parted 1817 (upon the news that Lady Frances Webster had taken a new lover in the Duke of Wellington who had defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo) In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years, Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this. The dew of the morning Sunk chill on my brow-It felt like the warning Of what I feel now. Thy vows are all broken, And light is thy fame; I hear thy name spoken, And share in its shame.

They name thee before me, A knell to mine ear; A shudder comes o’er me-Why wert thou so dear? They know not I knew thee, Who knew thee too well-Long, long shall I rue thee, Too deeply to tell. In secret we met-In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee? -With silence and tears.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 -1822) § § § Descended from Sussex aristocrats; grandfather richest man in the county, father a conservative member of Parliament In line for baronetcy, sent to school at Eton and Oxford Bad experiences at school; came to see tyranny of schoolmasters as representative of humanity’s general inhumanity; decided to fight injustice In 1810 at Oxford Shelley collaborated with friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg on a pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism; mailed it to the administration at Oxford and was expelled; estranged from father At eighteen married Harriet Westbrook in London, daughter of a wealthy tavern keeper, to „save” her from her father

• • 1812 travelled to Dublin with Harriet to distribute Address to the Irish People and participate in the movement for Catholic emancipation Became a fan of William Godwin (husband of Wollstonecraft) published first work Queen Mab in 1813, criticizing institutional religion and codified morality as the roots of social problems Fell in love with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, ran away with her to France in 1814; Godwin was not pleased; Harriet later committed suicide Percy and Mary married in 1816, moved to Italy in 1818, two children died in 1819 Completed some of his greatest works during this period, including Prometheus Unbound began reading Greek tragedy, Paradise Lost, the Bible; attributed the evils of society to humanity’s own moral failures; reform possible through the redeeming power of love 1820 settled in Pisa, „Pisan Circle, ” including Lord Byron Drowned in a boating accident during a storm in 1822 with Edward Williams

Byron: „You are all brutally mistaken about Shelley, who was, without exception, the best and least selfish man I ever knew. ”

Ozymandias I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. ”

England in 1819 An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King; Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn, —mud from a muddy spring; Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know, But leechlike to their fainting country cling Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow. A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field; An army, whom liberticide and prey Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield; Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed; A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed— Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.