A representative of the second
generation of English romantic poets, his was the life of the Romantic par
excellence, as he was an aristocrat, a prolific and successful poet, but
misunderstood by others, he liked to be considered a debauchee, even spreading
false rumours about his life style, and he died heroically fighting for Greek
independence.
He can be considered
romantic also in the features of his poetic, e.g. because of his tendency to
titanism (i.e. exaggeration of powerful feelings), and individualism
(identification and self-personalisation with his main characters); also, he
felt melancholic, both seeing the evident difference between reality and dream
world and trusting Calvinistic design of human predestination, thinking he was
thus bound to a sinful and condemned by others life.
He was also
interested in history, and especially in fallen empires and past ages in
general, i.e. once more in images of decay and death; he had a strong
nationalistic spirit, as he took part first in the Carbonari revolt against
Austrian domination in Ravenna and then in the Greek national fight against Ottoman
domination.
Byron’s idea of
Nature differs from Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s, as it is seen by him as a
reflection of his own mood: therefore he prefers strong and violent images of
weather phenomena (tempests, storms, procellous seas, high mountain ridges). He
also showed a taste for Gothicism (The
Prisoner of Chillon) and exoticism (Oriental
Tales), typical romantic characteristics, together with a sense of restlessness,
the urge of travelling (both compulsorily and voluntarily) throughout all
Europe, as he visited, during his short life, Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland,
Albania, Turkey, Italy and Greece.
Among the romantic
elements of Byron’s poetry there is the so-called “Byronic hero”, i.e. the
creation of characters with similar features, derived from Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost and from Byron’s own
personality (both real and self-made). Byronic hero is a dark and mysterious
man, pensive and brooding, with secrets in
his past, but provided with bravery and redeemed by his love for a
woman. There is in this also a reminiscence of Shakespearean hero, but with a
substantial difference: while in Shakespeare’s plays the hero is punished for
what he (or she) has committed, in Byron’s poems he is won by fatal doom and
weird destiny, which cannot be controlled (a clear link with the Calvinistic
Grace of God theory).
Some critics speak of “Augustan Byron”, i.e. of
another aspect of his poetry, devoted to satire, to mock-heroic poem, and to the
naked truth of things. His critical and satirical attitude is evident in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (in
satirical couplets, legacy of the admiration for Pope), written to respond to the
attack launched by “The Edinburgh Review”, in which he ridicules and denounces
the very best poets of the day furiously but uncritically. His sense of fun and
deflation of romantic ideals can distinctly be found in his ottava rima poems, rich in mock-heroic
situations and burlesque circumstances (all this was certainly in part drew
from Pulci’s Morgante Maggiore and
Casti’s works): The Vision of Judgement
and Don Juan are the representative
works of his Augustan facet.
Don Juan,
Byron’s masterpiece, deals apparently with the themes of love and youth, but
the true targets are the hypocrisies of the time, false sentimentalism,
marriage conventions, the more displayed than obeyed morality and the pervasive
corruption of politics in the Country. In this work the nexus with Laurence Sterne
and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s travels
is quite evident.
Byron was the only romantic English poet
capable to acquire an European influence, as non-Byronic authors could hardly
be found in the first half of the XIX century, as quite everyone refused the
political establishment of the time, aspired to personal fulfilment, and loved
liberty over any other thing like Byron did. Eminence in the Continent was
deeply in contrast with his reception in Motherland: in England fame had
mutated to infamy. It’s not a secret that gossip sheets sizzled with lurid
tales of homoeroticism, pederasty, adultery, and an incestuous liaison with his half-sister, Augusta.
The Byronic
hero
- is passionate, moody, restless
- hides some horrible secret in his past
- rejects the conventional moral rules of society
- is an outsider, isolated and attractive
- is of noble birth, but wild, rough in his manners
- looks hard but handsome
- has a great sensibility to nature and beauty, but is bored with the excesses and excitements of the world
Byron’s
personality influenced the Byronic hero: his life and poetry embodied the
Romantic spirit: a rich aristocrat, handsome but with the slight handicap of a
deformed foot, living a dissipate life but writing poetry that was widely
famous and influential on other writers, a believer in individual liberty and a
hater of constraints, on the personal and larger level, so a hater of tyrants.
Byron’s
view of nature: it reflected man’s feelings in its wildest exotic
landscapes.(no concolation or joy, no messages, no embodiment of any theory
His poetry
is
- classical in 18th-century poetic diction witty style to convey satirical aims
- Romantic in mood and choice of themes
