LIFE
He was born in London
in 1788 and lived in France
for a period. He was educated in Cambridge.
He was a reader of classics, especially poetry; he wrote and published his
first work, Hours of Idleness that was strongly criticised. He made the Grand
Tour in all the Mediterranean countries and started work on Child Harold's Pilgrimage in which he
told about his travel experiences. He published the first two cantos of Child
Harold's Pilgrimage, that were a success. He had a scandalous life: he had a relationship
with his half-sister. He met Percy and Mary Shelley. He began the poem The prisoner of Chillon , finished the
third canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and started Manfred. He moved to Venice
and was fascinated by the Carbonari, a group of conspirators. He than joined
other british radical exiles, such as Shelley, and published a political
journal, The liberal. He joined
Greeks in preparing a rivolt against Turks. He was made commander in chief, but
didn't live long enough to do any military action.
He covered different styles. He wrote
two long narrative poems: Child Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan, his
masterpiece.
POETRY:
Byron is romantic in:
His life: he came from an aristocratic family
His worship of liberty and his rebellion against any
form o oppression
His exageration of passions and emotions
His melancholy which led him to believe in his
predestination to a life full of pains, sins, and sorrows
His concept of nature: he has not a pantheistic view of
nature, and he doesn't find any extasy in it. He sees nature as a riflection of
himself, that's why he preferred to describe the wild part of it, for exemple
storms, roaling oceans, high mountains.
His byronic hero: it is a portrayd of himself, in fact
he identifies with his heroes.
REPUTATION:
He was criticised and attacked by
critics, but he was immensly popular in all the Europe.
Tennyson, when Byron died, wrote: "the whole world darkned to me", because
Byron embodied the romantic spirit and the romantic man, trying to give him a
face.
