Thomas Phillips, George Gordon Byron, 1835, National Portrait Gallery, London.
Inserire date autore: (1788-1824)
George Gordon Byron
Performer - Culture & Literature
Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2012
George Gordon Byron
1. Life
• Born in Dover in Kent in 1788.
• Sixth Baron Byron, descended
from two aristocratic families.
• Began to write at Trinity College,
Cambridge.
• In 1807 published Hours of
Idleness, a small volume of
lyric poems. H. Meyer, Lord Byron, 1816,
Victoria and Albert Museum,
London
• His poems were attacked in the
pages of the ‘Edinburgh Review’.
Performer - Culture & Literature
George Gordon Byron
1. Life
• His reply in English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers showed his
taste for satire.
• In 1809 he set out on a tour of
Spain, Portugal, Malta, Albania,
Greece and the Middle East.
Richard Westall, Portrait of Lord
Byron, 1813, National Portrait
Gallery, London.
Performer - Culture & Literature
George Gordon Byron
1. Life
• After his return to England in 1812,
he published the first ‘two cantos’
of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
• He became a literary and social
celebrity.
• In 1815 he married Annabella Richard Westall, Portrait of Lord
Byron, 1813, National Portrait
Milbanke. Gallery, London.
• His marriage collapsed a year later because
of his incestuous relationship with his half-
sister Augusta Leigh.
• He left England in 1816, never to return.
Performer - Culture & Literature
George Gordon Byron
1. Life
• He lived in Geneva, where
he became a friend of the
poet Percy Bysshe
Shelley.
• He moved to Venice,
where he began his
masterpiece, the mock-
epic Don Juan.
• In 1819 he moved to Milan
Thomas Phillips, Lord Byron, 1814.
where he became involved
in the patriotic plots
against Austrian rule.
Performer - Culture & Literature
George Gordon Byron
1. Life
• He committed himself to the
Greek struggle of
independence from Turkey.
• He died in the town of
Missolonghi in 1824, struck
by
a severe fever.
• His heart is buried in
Greece, Thomas Phillips, Lord Byron in
his body is interred in Albanian Dress, 1813, Venizelos
Mansion, residence to the British
England. Ambassador in Athens, Greece
Performer - Culture & Literature
George Gordon Byron
2. Main works
• Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-1818).
• The Giaour (1813), The Corsair, and Lara (1814):
a series of verse narratives.
• Manfred, a tragedy (1817).
• Don Juan (1819-24).
Jonny Lee Miller is Byron,
in the BBC drama Byron.
Performer - Culture & Literature
George Gordon Byron
3. Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage
Childe a young noble
awaiting knighthood
•Made up of four cantos.
•Deals with young Harold’s
travels.
•Introduces exotic settings.
•Contains descriptions
of nature.
Performer - Culture & Literature
George Gordon Byron
3. Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage
• The first two cantos
set in Spain, Portugal,
Albania and Greece.
• The third canto set in
Central Europe.
• The fourth canto set in Italy.
John Sanders, Sixth Lord Byron,
1809.
Performer - Culture & Literature
George Gordon Byron
4. The Byronic hero
• A moody, restless and mysterious
romantic rebel.
• Hides some sin or secret in his past.
• Characterised by proud individualism.
• Rejects the conventional moral rules
of society.
• An outsider, isolated and attractive
at the same time.
Performer - Culture & Literature
George Gordon Byron
4. The Byronic hero
• He is of noble birth, but wild
and rough in his manners.
• His looks are hard, but handsome.
• Has a great sensibility to nature
and beauty.
• Bored with the excesses of the world.
• Women cannot resist him,
but he refuses their love.
Performer - Culture & Literature
George Gordon Byron
5. Byron’s individualism
• Byron firmly believed in individual
liberty
• He hated any sort of constraint
• He wished to be himself without
compromises
• He denounced the evils of society
by using satire
• His mood and choice of themes were romantic
Performer - Culture & Literature
George Gordon Byron
6. Byron’s view of
nature
• Nature is not a source of consolation and joy.
• It does not embody any theory.
• It has no message to convey.
the wildest and
most
exotic natural
landscapes
reflect
the poet’s mood
and feelings
Performer - Culture & Literature
