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A Comment on Byron

A Comment on Byron
A Comment on Byron

A Comment on Byron

Byron, also known as the Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic Movement. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets. The friendship between Byron and Shelly is also admirable.

First, talk about Byron’s life. George Gordon Byron was born with a clubfoot in an impoverished noble family in London in 1788, one year before the French Revolution. Byron and his mother were abandoned by his father, the “Mad Jack.”However, his mother was moody and even called him“you lame brat.”So you can see that the poet’s childhood was not happy.

In 1801, he was first educated at Harrow, and then Cambridge, where he piled up debts and aroused alarm with bisexual love affairs. In 1805, Byron published his first collection of poems, Hours of Idleness, which was cruelly attacked by the passive romanticists like Wordsworth, Coleridge and especially Southey. Byron didn’t give up but to work day and night. Two years later, the poet answered his critics with the satire English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, which caused great shock in the upper classes.

In 1809, he took his seat in the House of Lords and set out on his tour, which helped him accumulate many materials. Real poetic success came in 1812 when Byron published the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. He married Anne Isabella Milbank in 1815, and their daughter Ada, which was considered the world’s first computer programmer, was born in the same year. And Ada and her father, they both died at the age of 36. The marriage was unhappy and ended with separation.

In 1816, he left England forever and his leaving remarked the split with the reactionary British government and the hypocritical English high society. Byron first went to Switzerland, where he met Shelly and they became good friends. Then he went to Italy and lived there until 1823. During the period, Byron kept a close contact with Shelly until Shelly died in 1822. In Italy, Byron finished his most works: Childe Harold, Don Juan, Gain and so on. The defeat of Carbonari uprising was a heavy blow to Byron. He resolved to devote his life to open fight against reaction. Then he

left for Greece and fought for the independence of Greece. Because of several months’hard work under bad weather, Byron fell ill and died. The whole Greek nation mourned over his death.

However, for a long time there existed two controversial opinions on Byron: he was regarded in England as the perverted man, the satanic poet; while on the Continent, he was hailed as the champion of liberty, poet of the people.

Because of the English prejudice, Byron was refused to be buried with his poetic peers when he died.

Only in 1969 was this prejudice against Byron finally overcome by the British critical circle. A white marble-floor memorial to Lord Byron was set up in Westminster Abbey. Thus, his name was put among those of famous poets in the "Poets' Corner."

As a leading romanticist, Byron’s chief contribution is his creation of the “Byron Hero.”Such a hero appears first in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and then further developed in later works such as the Oriental Tales, Manfred, and Don Juan in different guise. These heroes rise against tyranny and injustice, but they are merely lone fighters striving for personal freedom and some individual ends.

Then, talk about Byron’s influence. Byron's poetry has great influence on the literature of the whole world.

Across Europe, patriots and painters and musicians are all inspired by him. Poets and novelists are profoundly influenced by his work.

Actually Byron has enriched European poetry with an abundance of ideas, images, artistic forms and innovations.

西方语言学院2010级二班丁美云2010152042 作业提交时间:2012年10月29日星期一

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