George Gordon Byron
“Those who will not reason,are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and
those who dare not, are slaves.”
George Gordon, Lord Byron: 1788- 1824
Acquires his title at age 10 from his great-uncle the
“Wicked Lord Byron.”
Moves with his mother to Newstead Abbey, near Nottingham
1801: attends Harrow
1805: Cambridge
Meets his half sister
Augusta during this period.
1807: First volume of
poetry Hours of Idleness.
Byron: 1807-1815
1807: Byron departs on his grand tour—to Lisbon,
Spain, Greece and Albania.
Begins work on Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
1810: Visits Turkey.
1811: At 24, Byron returns to London.
1812: The first two cantos of Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage published.
1814: The Corsair
1815: Hebrew Melodies
The “mad-bad- and dangerous”
Lord Byron
Liaisons with Lady Caroline Lamb; Lady Oxford.
Scandal and gossip about his relationship with Augusta,
whose child is named Medora (heroine of The Corsair).
1815:Marries Annabella Milbanke.
Annabella leaves a few weeks
after the birth of Augusta Ada
Byron: 1816-1819
1816: Byron settles in Geneva, near Percy and Mary Shelley,
and
Claire Clairmont.
1817: begins work on Manfred.
Leaves for Venice. Continues work
on the third and fourth cantos of Childe Harold.
Sells Newstead Abbey for
£94,500
1819:First two cantos of Don
Juan.
Byron: 1819-1824
1819: Meets Countess Teresa Guiccioli and her Carbonari family.
1821: Publishes another mystery play, Cain.
Robert Southey follows with his comment on “the Satanic
School.”
Byron publishes The Vision of Judgment a rebuttal to
Southey.
1823: Joins the Greek war of independence.
Falls ill in 1824 and dies in April
at the age of 36.
Writing Style
Dark
Romantic
Sarcastic
Cynical
Don Juan
Don Juan is a satiric poem by Lord Byron, based on the Legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses, portraying Juan not as a womaniser, but as
someone easily seduced by women. It is a variation on the epic form. Modern critics generally consider it to be
Byron's masterpiece. Byron completed 16 cantos, leaving an unfinished 17th canto before his death.
The story of Don Juan first appears in an old Spanish legend concerning a handsome but unscrupulous man who seduces the daughter of the
commander of Seville and then, when challenged, kills her father in a duel. In the original version, Don Juan
mockingly invites the statue of the
father to a feast; the statue appears at
the banquet and ushers Don Juan to
hell. There are many re-tellings of this
story in drama and theatre; Mozart
used the story for his opera Don
Giovanni (1787).
The Byronic Hero
Byron’s poetry is based upon his own experience.
His heroes are more or less pictures of himself. His hero is known as “Byronic Hero”, a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. For such a hero, the conflict is usually one of rebellious individual against outworn social systems and
conventions.
The figure is, to some
extent, modeled on the life
and personality of Byron.
Major Works
Fugitive Pieces (1806)
Hours of Idleness (1807)
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos I & II (1812)
The Giaour (1813)
The Bride of Abydos (1813)
The Corsair (1814)
Lara (1814)
Hebrew Melodies (1815)
The Siege of Corinth (1816)
Parisina (1816)
The Prisoner of Chillon (1816)
The Dream (1816)
Prometheus (1816)
Darkness (1816)
Manfred (1817)
The Lament of Tasso (1817)
Beppo (1818)
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
Don Juan (1819–1824; incomplete on Byron's death in 1824)
Mazeppa (1819)
The Prophecy of Dante (1819)
Marino Faliero (1820)
Sardanapalus (1821)
The Two Foscari (1821)
Cain (1821)
The Vision of Judgment (1821)
Heaven and Earth (1821)
Werner (1822)
The Deformed Transformed (1822)
The Age of Bronze (1823)
The Island (1823)
