Lord Byron: A Study of His Work and Writing Advice

Baron Byron

The English Romantic poet Lord Byron was born on the 22nd of January 1788 as George Gordon Noel Byron. The poet was as notorious for his literary writings as his scandalous private life. He was raised by his capricious mother named Catherine Gordon and an abusive nurse. His father, John Byron, known as “Mad Jack”, squandered the inheritance of his mother before dying in 1791. At ten years old, George Gordon Byron abruptly inherited the title of Baron Byron as a consequence of his uncle’s passing. Catherine consequently moved with her son to the Byron estate of Newstead Abbey. After gaining an education at Harrow, a prestigious school in England, Lord Byron studied at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1805. Byron became experienced in his personal and intimate relationships throughout college. It is often construed that he was heterosexual because of the efforts both he and his publishers made to keep his bisexuality hidden due to the illegality of same sex relationships in the 1800’s. He wrote of the romantic love and attraction he felt for both men and women, but shortly after Byron’s death in 1824, his publisher burned Lord Byron’s memoirs to obscure any documentation of this fact. Following a failed pass at his distant cousin that he had fallen in love with, the unrequited love he endured with his cousin Mary Chaworth fueled Byron’s poetic works “Hills of Annesley” and “The Adieu”. Byron drew much inspiration from his life experiences and often. The events of his life permeate his writing throughout the course of his literary career.

Character Coincidence

Although Byron did try to dissuade his readers from making connections between his characters and himself, he was often viewed as intertwined with the personality of the characters he had penned. For those readers who took it a step further, they viewed Byron as the main character under the guise of a different name; Such is the case of Byron’s first work to become popular, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. In the later work known as Don Juan by Lord Byron, once again we observe the line thinning between character and author. Lord Byron had many lovers and even deduced that it was owing to the popularity that Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage had earned him that he had various and plentiful paramores desiring him. The striking similarities between author and character are no coincidence despite Byron’s efforts to distance himself from his characters. The comparison between Don Juan and Lord Byron is made due to the increasing dissatisfaction in both the author’s and the character’s personal sexual and romantic affairs. Readers of Byron’s work inferred that many of his characters had overlapping qualities indistinguishable from his personal life.

CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE: Written during his Mediterranean and Eastern tour voyage from 1809 to 1811, Lord Byron wrote his epic poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. This work was monumental in shifting Byron into a status of fame. He gave the manuscript to his adviser R.C. Dallas, who in turn relayed Byron’s work to the “Scott and Southey” publisher, John Murray II. This began what was to be a profitable relationship for Byron with the publication. Cantos I and II of the autobiographical poem were the first works that propelled Byron to popularity among poets. Published in 1812, these first two cantos sold out in three days. As a consequence of the high demand for Byron’s epic poem, two days following, another edition was released with six times the amount of copies previously released. Within five months, the epic poem sold 4,500 copies. Although his works had been published previously, none had achieved the level of acknowledgement that Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage had now earned for Byron.

Byronic Hero

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage features a young “childe”: a medieval term for a noble who has yet to be knighted. Throughout the first two Cantos of the epic poem, the protagonist looks for a way to escape his nihilistic outlook on life and we follow young Harold on his solo journey through foreign countries. The main character’s pilgrimage mirrors Lord Byron’s personal journey; So similar is Harold’s expedition to Byron’s that many readers, both today and during his time, view this epic poem as an autobiographical travelog. Harold is the first of an archetype that is called the “Byronic hero”. The character explores the romantic ideals of society at that time in comparison to the melancholic reality, which was a groundbreaking revelation and exploration of that dissonance.

After the first two cantos, Cantos III and IV of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage were published in 1816 and 1818 respectively. Interestingly, the fourth canto shifts into the first person, and Byron continues telling of travels from his own point of view. Throughout the entirety of the epic poem, Lord Byron describes relevant people and events that have shaped the history of that specific geographical location. He conveys the story through deliberate archaic language, elucidating the context in which he portrays historical figures and events that have impacted the area. The most intriguing aspect of the story lies in the character Harold and his resemblance to the author, namely due to the shift to first person in the final canto. The Byronic hero is the character archetype that categorizes characters who are nihilistic yet have a romantic mystique. Although the character type has been around long before it was termed “Byronic”, Lord Byron is allied with the archetype because his works made these types of characters more commonplace and widespread throughout literature.

Author Anonymous

DON JUAN: Preluding Don Juan, Lord Byron’s Beppo was a revisit to his satirical writing style and ottava rima form through experimentation. Beppo allowed Byron to come back into the satirical writing genre with a renewed voice in which he composed his elevated satire in ottava rima, Don Juan. Consisting of 16 cantos and the 17th left unfinished in his death, Byron’s first two cantos of this comic epic were published in 1819. In result of the offensive nature of the derisive language that Byron uses to mock pervasive people and ideals during his time within the piece, his publisher Murray was hesitant to publish Don Juan and the intense views expressed therein. Lord Byron refused to change his writing to appease the disapproval of the critics. Sometimes writing what is unpopular, yet genuine, is revolutionary. Byron refused to slash any of his statements or censor any of the less delicate words he had penned, telling Murray that the poem, which resembles prose, would either fail or succeed of its own accord. Although, the poem was published anonymously, speaking volumes of the backlash that was expected to come from the readers who felt that this piece was offensive. The relationship between Lord Byron and publisher John Murray became increasingly tense, and following the publishing of Cantos I to V of Don Juan, Byron split with Murray and instead John Hunt published the Cantos VI to XVI. Due to the radical nature of the later cantos, Byron held nothing but praise for his new publisher and all that he was willing to print in Byron’s name.

Later cantos were published throughout the years until 1824. Don Juan caused many admirers of the work to remake the piece in mimicry of Byron’s playful yet skillful incorporation of medieval light verse. Throughout the poem, the author evokes all different kinds of emotions while working with a variety of genres. Byron does not close the poem off to other genres in the spirit of only portraying one; On the contrary, he demonstrates nearly every feeling via differentiating methods of style while keeping the work in a poetic form. A parody of sorts, Don Juan is a retelling of the story of Don Juan, who was a famous womanizer. Although within Byron’s version of the story Don Juan is not the heartbreaking philanderer that he is classically portrayed as, but rather one who falls into the seductive trap that the women who want him place before him. He is therefore a sufferer of the wiles of women, but our character is not overly sentimental about the sexual relationships he has. Traditionally, Don Juan is the character who woos women, but Byron flips the script of the story and takes the position of Don Juan as a victim of women because he is innocent at heart and is simply a good-looking man who unexpectedly receives women’s affection. Over time as a man who has continual sexual experiences, Don Juan becomes jaded, mirroring Byron’s personal feeling of indifference to his intimate exchanges.

Revolutionary Romantic Poet

Lord Byron was reprimanded through criticism and backlash from various critics and readers of his work. Because of the critics, Byron became increasingly impatient towards those who disapproved of his words and stubborn in what he chose to write and publish. Despite the naysaying commentators, Byron states that he refuses to deviate from his purpose. While many of his ideas during his time were unpopular, today we regard him highly for his perseverance against those who wished for Lord Byron’s downfall. His passion for the advocation of controversial and liberal ideals were the actions that earned him the title of a Revolutionary Poet. Some of the most important topics of the time were determined by Romanticism and the growing realization of the dissension between social emancipation ideals and the truth of the poor and oppressed. During this time, multitudes of those living in Romantic era society felt ardor for the purpose of governments serving their common people. Not only was Lord Byron involved in the pressing issues of his day, he influenced the matters as well. Byron was influential in his persistent communication on the topics of religion, politics, and relationships like in Don Juan. Being that he was the sixth Baron Byron, he held a position of prestige with his title and was able to speak to those who held power.

The intricate life and literary career of Lord Byron are widely studied today because of the profound impact of his advocacy. His work is still considered that of a prominent leader of the Romantic Period. The Romantic Period occurred from around 1798 until 1837, in which the climate of politics and economics were the most influential factors of the time. The French Revolution was a large source of inspiration for writers of Byron’s day because of the upheaval of the traditional relationship between the government and the governed; This was a monumental event of the early 1800’s, and paved the way for the Romantic Period. We see the lingering effects of Byron’s influence in writing since his day and throughout the 1900’s into today. Other influential writers of his day including Mary Shelley and John William Polidori, were alligned with Lord Byron. Credited with popularizing couplet rhymes in English poetry and even qualified as a master of the couplet, Byron’s work has influenced poets Walt Whitman, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Jane Austen.

Throughout time, there have been fluctuations in Lord Byron’s popularity, but he has continuously remained a prominent literary figure. In 1907, the article “Byron in Our Day” by J. F. A. Pyre was published in The Atlantic. Pyre explains the “revival” of the works of Byron, demonstrated by the poems, letters and journals by Lord Byron that were printed in new editions during 1907. Later in a 1922 article by critic Katharine Fullerton Gerould, she emphasizes the widespread fascination and obsession of Byron’s work and the pervasive popularity of Lord Byron among literature through “the Byron-complex”. She reveals that it is simply the personality and private life of Lord Byron that has made him such a topic of interest; defying the normal life-expectancy rate of other similar authors. During Byron’s own time in the 1800’s, his fame had dominated the discussion surrounding him and his literary achievements. The amount of recognition Lord Byron obtained has either been applauded by his supporters, or baffling to those who dislike him or his works. 

The Expression of Excited Passion

In a letter from 1821, Lord Byron wrote, “I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of excited passion...". Writers everywhere understand the strong emotions and personal connections that are unearthed only through penning words onto paper. Because writing is a form of communication that may persist after one’s death, there is no surety in knowing what words might resonate in the multifariousness of humanity. The passion that forms pieces from different eras allows us to connect with those like Lord Byron, who lived and felt with the same intensity that we do today, over 200 years later. Writers from the 1800’s were also involved with the work Byron was sharing. In Byron’s Don Juan, he includes a few “poetical commandments” in which he offers his opinions on various important contemporaries and literary celebrities. He does so in a method of satire, edifying those who were his literary associates. This demonstrates how Lord Byron may have been more receptive to the critics if they had portrayed their dissensions in a satirical manner. Byron also consistently turned the events in his life into energy for his writing. It was not before his journey to Newstead when his mother had passed away that he wrote Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage in full. He also frequently used his unique experiences as the structure for his characters. Lord Byron found purpose in his advocacy and his writings, and adamantly refused to allow those who disapproved of his passionate vigor to direct his words.

Discussion Questions:

1. Lord Byron often tried his hand at different forms, as he did with Beppo which became a draft of sorts for his masterpiece Don Juan. What are some forms that you have written in or would like to experiment with?

2. Byron was an active advocate for change during the 1800’s. What political or economical events are prominent in today’s time that might be worth exploring or including in your work?

3. Readers of Lord Byron’s work often conclude that his imagined characters are representations of the author himself. Would there be difficult outcomes, such as an assumed autobiography like in Byron’s case, when using personal events in your own writing?