Lord Byron: The Man, The Myth, The Legend
The Byronic hero is commonly described as arrogant and isolated, while also being seductive and mysterious. Part of the character’s mystery is usually due to their hidden, dark past. Our modern Byronic heroes would be Edward Cullen in Twilight, Tony Stark in Iron Man, and Bruce Wayne in Bat Man. None of these characters could compare to the man who inspired and popularized the use of the Byronic hero in Gothic Romantic literature, Lord Byron.
Byron was unlike all other canonical Romantics in that he was or at least gave a good public impression of being, economically well off. He was also famous; at the time of his death, the most famous writer in Europe.
Kurt Heinzelman
Eighteenth century playboy, George Gordon, Lord Byron was born in London 1788 to John “Mad Jack” Byron and Catherine Gordon, a Scottish heiress. Before the age of one Byron’s father spent all Catherine’s fortune and her and Byron to fend for themselves. This experience took a huge toll on Byron’s mother. Catherine Gordon began to resent
Byron’s half-sister Augusta
Byron and left him to be taken care of by a nurse who Byron says “early awakened his sexuality” (Damrosch and Dettmar 708). At the age of thirteen, Byron was sent to Harrow for school; around the same time Byron is said to have met his half-sister Augusta.
Lord Byron first appeared as a writer in 1807, at the age of nineteen when Hours of Idleness was published. Byron’s Hours of Idleness, shook the literary world inciting a review from the Edinburgh Review that Byron would later satirize gaining more notoriety. From 1810 to 1811, Byron traveled to Lisbon, Spain, Greece, and Albania. He returned home to London in July 1811. Byron did some work in parliament but that was soon overshadowed by his second work, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. This poem was followed by several “eastern” stories inspired by Byron’s travels in 1810 and 1811.
Aside from Byron’s literature, he was known to be a “player.” Byron had many different lovers, both men and women, and experimented with anything he could get his hands on, i.e., opium. Byron’s eccentric lifestyle topped with his writings landed him in the spotlight of English writers. One of the largest scandals of the early nineteenth century was that of Byron’s affair with his half-sister Augusta. The rumor was that Lord Byron and Augusta had what may have been a long-lasting affair, 1801 to 1814. Byron then decided that the best way to distract the public from his incestuous affair was to propose
Annabella Milbanke
to heiress Annabella Milbanke. Soon after their marriage and birth of their daughter Augusta Ada in 1815, Milbanke found out about Byron’s past and left him. This scandal is one of the major reasons that Lord Byron’s works were popular, such as Manfred (1817).
Lord Byron’s Manfred tells the story of a man who is suffering from a lost love, Astarte, an incestuous pagan goddess. The name of Manfred’s lover reignited the rumors of Byron’s affair with his sister Augusta. Manfred’s self-imposed guilt leads him to call upon seven spirits of nature, to which he asks to forget about his past (Byron 716). Because he has no regard for nature or the spirits, Manfred is cursed to live in his misery (Byron 718). The readers at the time could not help but see Lord Byron in the character of Manfred. Many wondered whether this dramatic poem was just a narrative work or a confession from Byron.
But Byron’s promiscuous ways did not stop at his affair with Augusta or the poem Manfred. After fleeing England, Byron moved to Geneva where he lived with his lover, Mary Godwin’s stepsister, Claire Clairmont. Clairmont later gave birth to their daughter Allegra in England, and in October Byron left for Venice. While in Venice, Byron had many sexual escapades and finished Manfred. Byron also wrote many sexual poems including Beppo and Don Juan. Byron continued to push the envelope with these writing that discussed “sexual, political and religious” topics (Damrosch and Dettmar 709). In April 1819, Byron met and married nineteen-year-old Countess Teresa Gamba Guiccioli. At the time Byron was thirty-one. Through this marriage, Byron was given membership into the Carbonari, an organization that wanted Italian independence from Austria (Damrosch and Dettmar 709). In this period, Byron wrote more historical dramas loosely based on the things he experienced while apart of the Carbonari like Marino Faliero, Sardanopolus, and The Two Foscari.
Byron was eventually reduced to living a domestic life when his wife Teresa and her family were exiled because of their part in a radical revolution. In July 1823, Byron was sent to Cephalonia as an agent to help Greece gain their independence. Byron found himself completely devoted to this cause. Byron founded and financially aided and trained a brigade of soldiers to support the effort. After all the travels, literature, and political endeavors, Byron died at the age of thirty-six. Byron left a lasting impression on literature and on popular culture as he is deemed to be one of the first celebrities.
Ultimately, Lord Byron’s mysteriousness and charm is what led him to be in the spotlight of English literature. Throughout his short life, Byron managed to become one of the most influential writers of his time. Byron’s use of the hero with a tortured soul was a staple and has continued to be a popular archetype.
Works Cited
Byron, Lord. “Manfred.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature, edited by Damrosch, David and Dettmar, Kevin J.H., Pearson, 2012, 712-722.
Damrosch, David and Dettmar, Kevin J.H. “George Gordon, Lord Byron.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature, edited by Damrosch, David and Dettmar, Kevin J.H., Pearson, 2012, 708-710.
Damrosch, David and Dettmar, Kevin J.H. “Manfred, A Dramatic Poem.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature, edited by Damrosch, David and Dettmar, Kevin J.H., Pearson, 2012, 711-712.
Phillips, Thomas. Portrait of George Gordon 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale in Albanian Dress, 1813 (oil on canvas). 1813. British Library, https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/byron-portrait. Accessed April 2017.
Hayter, Charles. Anne Isabella Milbanke in 1812. 1812. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Isabella_Byron,_Baroness_Byron. Accessed April 2017.
Heinzelman, Kurt. “Lord Byron and the Invention of Celebrity.” Southwest Review, vol. 93, no. 4, 2008, pp. 489–501., http://www.jstor.org/stable/43472933.
Augusta Maria Leigh. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Isabella_Byron,_Baroness_Byron. Accessed April 2017.
I love the contextualization in this post. I think that it is helpful to know where the artist was in time while they were composing their famous works, and you certainly provided that information for Byron! I understand why he was a celebrity at the time. His story is fascinating!
Usually stories from U.K are famous in Asia. But I never heard of lady byron
Aja,
This post is very well-written. I’m partial to Byron, which probably contributed to my enjoyment of it, but also good job! I laughed out loud at the phrase “reduced to living a domestic life”, I think Bryon would have whole-heartedly approved of your verb choice there. The portraits of his lovers help with visualisation, as does the title. To echo an above comment, I really liked how you contextualised his work, it helped me a good deal in understanding why and when he wrote the things he did. I would have loved to have read more about his relationship with other writers, but I understand you were focusing on Byron’s life and work, and I think you did an excellent job!
Addison
Your blog post definitely brings “Manfred” to life in a new way. Learning about Byron’s life, escapades, and personality should be a required element prior to reading “Manfred.” When I first read Manfred for class, I knew little about Byron, and definitely wasn’t aware of the scandal surrounding the poem. I love that you wrote on what contemporary society at that time thought of “Manfred.” Their reaction mirrors how we treat modern celebrities in terms of stalking and digging for information–and making huge assumptions based on little bits of information. Which makes me feel like we as people have not changed very much in terms of our love of gossip and our deification of celebrities.
I really enjoyed reading this post!! I have to say, I did not know any of these riveting facts involving Byron’s personal life, and it was very interesting to hear about his almost scandalous way of living. I love how you connected his actual rendezvous to his writing in order to give a new perspective on “Manfred.” The lengthy examination of Byron’s life mixed with the in-depth analysis of “Manfred” and a few other works made for a very insightful read, and I appreciate this, because I think it’s important to understand what goes into a work of literature instead of just focusing on the surface level text. I most definitely see how his work made it into the spotlight and I have to agree that he earned his spot as one of the first celebs. This post was great!
What an interesting post! I really loved when we read Manfred in class, so it was cool learning more about the background. It’s kind of comical to imagine just how much Byron really was like his archetypal hero. At the same time, it’s also a little sad because he must have been a pretty troubled individual. Anyway, all the background into Byron’s life was awesome to learn about. My very favorite factoid is that Byron founded a brigade of soldiers to help Greece acquire independence. This post taught me a lot of interesting information, and helped me understand Byron and his work even more. Great Job!
I just learned so many random trivia facts about Byron, I love it! Your blog was super interesting. It was really cool to see all the connections between his life and “Manfred”. It definitely makes the story more interesting knowing the truth behind it… I also think it is funny how this man was so crazy for his time period. It still is really crazy and a weird life, but I think we have a lot of people now that we can compare to him. A lot of today’s celebrities have their fair share of scandalous stories that us fans just cannot get enough of. I really enjoyed reading your blog and learning more about Lord Byron!
I have always known about Lord Byron, but have never read his work until this class. This post has made me want to read more of his work and dive further into life. It is interesting how “life imitates art,” this time with Byron’s life being written into Manfred, which now has a different reading glancing back through the text. Byron didn’t seem to find fault with the fact he was having an affair with his own half-sister. I wonder if he felt guilt with the relationship since he married different women.
It is always interesting to know the story behind a piece of literature. A lot of times in poetry you can’t assume any correlation between the author and the speaker, but you made it pretty clear that Byron’s personal life played a major role in his literary works. In a way, Byron reminds me of Councilman Dexhart from Parks and Recreation who is always getting caught in a different sex scandal. Overall, I liked how concise and to the point your writing is, and it defiantly made this as easy read!
I came into class without any knowledge of Lord Byron, so learning about him was a lot of fun. So many of the things he did are scandalous today, so I can’t imagine how ridiculous his exploits must have seemed to people in his time. Lord Byron embodies every aspect of the celebrity, from his crazy lifestyle to his richness. The sheer amount of women he was with seems impossible for people of his time period. The part about his nurse awakening his sexuality made me laugh a lot.