George Gordon, Lord Byron, is one of the more intriguing characters in the history of English literature. Considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Romantic writer by his contemporaries, Byron has come to be seen as the least important of the major writers of the period. The introduction in your text suggests that the popularity Byron enjoyed during his lifetime

may surprise the student who is aware of the recent . . . estimate of Byron as the least consequential of the great Romantic poets, whose achievements have little in common with the distinctive innovations of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, or Shelley. (552)

With the exception of Shelley, Byron disparaged the works of the other Romantic writers, preferring the Neoclassical approach of Alexander Pope and other continental eighteenth-century writers. Indeed, Byron's masterpiece, Don Juan, is an example" of that favorite neoclassic type, a satire against modern civilization" (Norton 552).

The Byronic Hero

The Byronic hero, who "helped shape the intellectual as well as the cultural history of the later nineteenth century," is clearly defined in the following:

[H]is persistent character is that of a moody, passionate, and remorse-torn but unrepentant wanderer. . . .[H]e is an alien, mysterious, and gloomy spirit, immensely superior in his passions and powers to the common run of humanity, whom he regards with disdain. He harbors the torturing memory of an enormous, nameless guilt that drives him toward an inevitable doom. He is in his isolation absolutely self-reliant, inflexibly pursuing his own ends according to his self-generated moral code against any opposition, human or supernatural. And he exerts an attraction on other characters that is the more compelling because it involves their terror at his obliviousness to ordinary human concerns and values. (Norton 552, emphasis mine)

Make certain that you read carefully the introductory section in your anthology (551-55). It offers a fine overview of Byron's life and times and should help you to better understand the works. Perhaps, as you come away from your reading, you should keep in mind his "strong love of liberty" and his "detestation of cant" (hypocrisy in all its forms).

Follow the links below in the course of your study:

• Notes on Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
• Notes on Don Juan

^© Scott Foll 2000. All rights reserved.