For truth denies all eloquence to woe."
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), was an English Romantic poet, womaniser, and revolutionary. Among his best-known works include Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and he gave his name to the Byronic Hero, using the character in his work and being one in real life.
Byron was born on 22 January 1788 in London, the son of Army Captain John "Mad Jack" Byron, of a junior line of moderately old gentry familynote and Catherine Gordon (heiress to the Scottish estate of Gight, in Aberdeenshire), who married in 1785. His clubfoot was a very touchy subject for him, and he had to wear shoes for it. By the time George was born in 1788, "Mad Jack" had squandered most of Catherine's money, and she took her son to Aberdeen to eke out an existence on the remaining crumbs and a small trust fund; "Mad Jack" died of tuberculosis in 1791. In 1798, then 10 years old, George unexpectedly inherited the title and the family seat at Newstead Abbey from his great-uncle William, the 5th Baron Byron, and his mother proudly took him to England. The Abbey, however, was in a state of disrepair, and she decided to lease it to a Lord Grey de Ruthyn, among others, during Byron's adolescence, but Byron himself was wowed by its ghostly halls and spacious ruins.
Byron received his early formal education at Aberdeen Grammar School, and in August 1799, entered a school in Dulwich. His mother, however, interfered with his studies, often withdrawing him from school, and thus he lacked discipline and ended up neglecting his classical studies. He was then sent to Harrow School in 1801, where he remained until July 1805. In 1803 he fell in love with his distant cousin, Mary Chaworth, who was older and already engaged, and when she rejected him, she became the symbol for Byron of idealized and unattainable love. He probably met Augusta Byron, his half-sister from his father’s first marriage, that same year.
In 1805, Byron went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he acquired an alarming amount of debt and indulged in the vices of the undergraduates then. Most notably, he engaged in multiple sexual escapades with women and men; one of his escapades was what Byron described as "a violent, though pure, love and passion" for a young chorister named John Edleston. In 1806, he published his first volume of poetry, Fugitive Pieces. That same year, he befriended John Cam Hobhouse, who instilled into him an interest in Whiggism, and Francis Hodgson, a fellow of King's College with whom he corresponded on literary matters.
In adulthood, he was famous for scandalous behaviour and was a romantic but outrageous figure of rumour and gossip. He gave two memorable speeches in the House of Lords. One was a Deadpan Snarker rant objecting to a proposal legislating the death penalty for framebreaking
— traditional hand-weavers sabotaging mechanical looms that were putting them out of business. He pointed out that cloth made by machines wasn't nearly as high quality or long-lasting. Later he spoke up for Catholic emancipation (Catholics couldn't vote or own property) and against having an official state religion.
His poems include the semi-autobiographical Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and the long Narrative Poem Alternative Character Interpretation Don Juan.
The women in his life included:
- Lady Caroline Lamb, wife of the future Prime Minister Viscount Melbourne. She described him as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know"... before their affair even started.
- Augusta Leigh, his half-sister. Augusta (who was married) had a third daughter, Medora Leigh, who may (or may not) have been Byron's child.
- Lady Caroline's cousin, Anne Isabella Milbanke, whom Byron married. The marriage was not happy, but produced one daughter, Ada Byron. Ada later married the Earl of Lovelace, becoming known as "Ada Lovelace". Anne regarded Lord Byron's brooding Romanticism as a form of insanity, and so raised Ada with a focus on logic and mathematics so she would not Turn Out Like Her Father. As a result, Ada came to be interested in the sciences, and worked with Charles Babbage in his development of mechanical computing machines. When Babbage designed his (never-built) Analytical Engine, it was Ada who recognised the possibility that these machines could be used to manipulate any kind of information, and not simply conduct elaborate mathematical calculations. She thus became the person after whom the programming language Ada was named in recognition of the oft-overlooked contribution of women to computer science. All at least in part because Lord Byron's wife thought Lord Byron was mad. Despite this, Ada Lovelace did want to know her father more and requested to be buried next to him. As for Lord Byron himself, she was his sole legitimate child and he commented on their parting as such:Lord Byron: Is thy face like thy mother's my fair child! ADA! sole daughter of my house and heart?
- Claire Clairmont, the step-sister of Mary Shelley (the author of Frankenstein). They had a daughter, Allegra, who died at the age of 5. Byron was very good friends with Shelley, and was famously present for her first reading of Frankenstein.
Byron took part in the Greek War of Independence (1821-1830). He died, after being repeatedly bled with dirty surgical instruments, of a fever contracted while in Messolonghi in Greece, in 1824 at the age of 36. He is regarded as a hero in Greece for his humanitarian aid to the cause of independence.
Along with being associated with Greece, he was fascinated by Armenian culture and history and immersed himself therein, learning the language and creating translations of significant Armenian works. He is considered the founder of modern Armenian studies.
Works by Lord Byron on the wiki:
Tropes from the works of Lord Byron:
- Anti-Hero: Byron liked these so much that a certain type are often called "Byronic heroes".
- Blue Blood: To be a Byronic Hero, it helps to have the leisure to spend your time learning, travelling, brooding, and womanising (and man-ising), and so most of Byron's heroes are aristocrats like himself.
- Byronic Hero: Obviously. Byron used this type of character very often, and he was considered to be one himself in real life. Byron's description of Conrad, the protagonist of The Corsair, provides the general essence of the character:He knew himself a villain—but he deem'd
The rest no better than the thing he seem'd;
And scorn'd the best as hypocrites who hid
Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.
He knew himself detested, but he knew
The hearts that loath'd him, crouch'd and dreaded too.
Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt
From all affection and from all contempt: - Cain: Cain tells the story of Cain and Abel but through Cain's eyes. Being the Trope Maker for that trope, Cain is interpreted as a Byronic Hero and Anti-Hero, viewing him as symbolic of a sanguine temperament, provoked by Abel's hypocrisy and sanctimony.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: "The Destruction of Sennacherib," based on the Biblical account of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem.
- Dark Is Not Evil: "She Walks in Beauty" doesn't go deeply into moral questionsnote , but it makes an excellent case that darkness is not aesthetically bad.She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies. - The End of the World as We Know It: "Darkness" is a fanciful description of one such scenario, caused by the sun being "extinguish'd."
- Feeling Their Age: "So We'll Go No More a Roving" has the 29-year-old Byron lament that he can't be quite as wild a partier as he used to be:For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest. - Gorgeous Greek: Byron had a soft spot for female Greeks as heroines that often had tragic romances with his protagonists such as Haydée in Don Juan. No doubt this was influenced by Philehellenism (love for Greek culture).
- The Night That Never Ends: "Darkness" explores the effects of one.
- Pirate: The Corsair, published in 1814, tells the story of Conrad, a wild and ruthless Aegean pirate whose only virtue is the love he feels for the gentle Medora.
- Take That!: Byron notably did not think highly of John Keats. Even though he had some begrudging respect for the other poet, conceding that the Hyperion is a "fine monument", he mocked how Keats was killed off by a bad review throughout his life. To name one example among many, Byron wrote a squib in response to learning that Percy Bysshe Shelley accused the Quarterly of killing Keats:"Who kill'd John Keats?"
"I," says the Quarterly,
"So savage and Tartarly;
'Twas one of my feats."
"Who shot the arrow?"
"The poet-priest Milman
(So ready to kill man),
Or Southey or Barrow."
Has featured in the following works:
Comic Books- He appeared in The Invisibles.
- The opening to Bride of Frankenstein, in which he and Percy Shelley are entertained by Mary Shelley's telling of the narrative of the movie.
- He is portrayed by Gabriel Byrne in the 1986 horror film Gothic, which depicts a fictionalized version of Percy and Mary Shelley's visit to Byron at Villa Diodati.
- He is depicted by Tom Sturridge in the 2017 autobiographical period drama Mary Shelley.
- Lord Ruthven, the villain protagonist of The Vampyre by Lord Byron's doctor John William Polidori is said to be modelled on Lord Byron.
- "Missolonghi 1824", a short story by John Crowley anthologized in Poe's Children
- The Anubis Gates, a novel by Tim Powers
- The Stress of Her Regard, a novel by Tim Powers
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, a novel by Susanna Clarke
- The Difference Engine, a Steampunk novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. In this one, he manages to survive the Greek War of Independence and becomes Prime Minister over a society that depends on the mechanical computers invented by Charles Babbage and the aforementioned Ada Lovelace.
- A computerized Byron features in Conversations with Lord Byron on Perversion, 163 Years After His Lordship's Death, a novel by Amanda Prantera
- The Missolonghi Manuscript, a novel by Frederic Prokosch
- Benjamin Markovits has published two novels of a trilogy about Lord Byron: Imposture and A Quiet Adjustment
- Lord Byron's Doctor, a novel by Paul West
- Lady Caroline Lamb, mentioned above, published Glenarvon, a roman-a-clef about her affair with Byron
- An Alternate History analogue, John Byron III, appears in a flash-forward segment of Look to the West set in 1830.
- The Twelfth Enchantment has Lord Byron involved in a magical conspiracy.
- He appears as a major character in the Regency era Steampunk thriller Moonlight, Murder & Machinery.
- In the Father Brown mystery The wrong Shape, the culprit is a Totalitarian Utilitarian who murders his victim because it was the best course of action to everyone involved (even the victim), and then:When I had done it, the extraordinary thing happened. Nature deserted me. I felt ill. I felt just as if I had done something wrong... What is the matter with me?... Madness... or can one have remorse, just as if one were in Byron’s poems!
- In Anne of the Island a few lines from "The Isle of Greece" are quoted by the girls. They're all liberal arts college students, and Anne at least is majoring in English, so they'd be well read.
- Blackadder. Appears in "Ink and Incapability" where he wears a big shirt and threatens to kill everyone with syphilis.
- Byron a BBC 2003 two-parter tells his story.
- Doctor Who. Appears in "The Haunting of Villa Diodati", in which he annoys the Thirteenth Doctor and (at the end of the episode) quotes from Darkness, foreshadowing the apocalyptic events to come.
- Highlander: The Series. The episode "The Modern Prometheus" has Byron as an Immortal.
- His famous words on freedom, "Yet Freedom, thy banner torn but flying, streams like the thunderstorm against the wind", serves as the motto, and title for the Australian TV series Against the Wind, produced in 1979, taking place in Byron´s lifetime (but mostly in Australia).
- A hologram of Byron appears once on Star Trek: Voyager, trying to convince a hologram of Mahatma Gandhi to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. Gandhi responds by recommending that Byron take a cold bath instead.
- Arcadia
- He is referred to in the works of Henrik Ibsen, and is one of the many candidates for modelling "the unknown passenger" in Peer Gynt.
- The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, though only shows up in the first frame of Ada Lovelace's origin story. Still fitting, though, as he is Ada Lovelace's father.
- In an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, he appeared to temporarily possess Billy when the latter was sleepwalking and sucking on Grim's skull and act as a form of mentor.
