George Gordon Byron, commonly known as Lord Byron, was an influential English Romantic poet. He was born in 1788 and died in 1824 while fighting for Greek independence. Byron was famous during his lifetime for his aristocratic lifestyle and numerous love affairs that often ended in scandal. His best known works include the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan, as well as the short lyric She Walks in Beauty. Byron addressed themes of unattainable love and drew heavily from his own experiences in his autobiographical poetry.
1. Universidade Estadual da Paraíba – UEPB
Departamento de Letras e Artes
Curso: Licenciatura Plena em Letras Inglês
Componente Curricular: Literatura Inglesa III
Professor: Thiago Rodrigo de Almeida da Cunha
Aluno: Rodrigo Brito de Queiroz
3. 1. Who was he?
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April
1824), commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was an
English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement.
Among Byron's best-known works are the lengthy narrative
poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and the short
lyric She Walks in Beauty. He is regarded as one of the greatest
British poets and remains widely read and influential.
Often described as the most flamboyant and notorious of the major
Romantics, Byron was celebrated in life for aristocratic excesses,
including huge debts, numerous love affairs with both sexes, rumours
of a scandalous incestuous liaison with his half-sister, and self-
imposed exile.
4. 2. A summary of his lifetime
Byron spent his early years in Aberdeen, and was educated at
Harrow School and Cambridge University. In 1809, he left for a two-year
tour of a number of Mediterranean countries. He returned to England
in 1811, and in 1812 the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'
were published. Byron became famous overnight.
In 1814, Byron's half-sister Augusta gave birth to a daughter, almost
certainly Byron's. The following year Byron married Annabella Milbanke,
with whom he had a daughter, his only legitimate child. The couple
separated in 1816.
Facing mounting pressure as a result of his failed marriage,
scandalous affairs and huge debts, Byron left England in April 1816 and
never returned. He spent the summer of 1816 at Lake Geneva with
Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary and Mary's half sister Claire
Clairmont, with whom Byron had a daughter.
5. Facing mounting pressure as a result of his failed marriage,
scandalous affairs and huge debts, Byron left England in April 1816
and never returned. He spent the summer of 1816 at Lake Geneva
with Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary and Mary's half sister Claire
Clairmont, with whom Byron had a daughter.
Byron travelled on to Italy, where he was to live for more than six
years. In 1819, while staying in Venice, he began an affair with Teresa
Guiccioli, the wife of an Italian nobleman. It was in this period that
Byron wrote some of his most famous works, including 'Don Juan'
(1819-1824).
In July 1823, Byron left Italy to join the Greek insurgents who were
fighting a war of independence against the Ottoman Empire. On 19
April 1824 he died from fever at Missolonghi, in modern day Greece.
His death was mourned throughout Britain. His body was brought
back to England and buried at his ancestral home in Nottinghamshire.
6. 3. About his poetry
The poetry of Lord Byron is varied, but it tends to address a few
major themes. Byron looked upon love as free but unattainable in the
ideal, an idea springing from his own multitude of affairs and ultimate
lack of happiness in any of them. His characters and themes are highly
autobiographical; most every poem by Byron finds as its inspiration
some real person or place Byron had encountered. And although
Bryon was a Romantic poet, much of his poetry follows traditional
forms.
7. 4. Most important poems
The First Kiss of Love (1806)
Lachin y Gair (1807)
Epitaph to a Dog (1808)
Maid of Athens, ere we part (1810)
And Thou Art Dead, as Young And Fair (1812)
She Walks in Beauty (1814)
When We Two Parted (1817)
So, we'll go no more a-roving (1830)
8. From Don Juan(1819–1824; incomplete on
Byron's death in 1824, and considered his most
important work): Canto 1, Stanzas 47-48
BY LORD BYRON
47
Sermons he read, and lectures he endured,
And homilies, and lives of all the saints;
To Jerome and to Chrysostom inured,
He did not take such studies for restraints;
But how faith is acquired, and then insured,
So well not one of the aforesaid paints
As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions,
Which make the reader envy his
transgressions.
48
This, too, was a seal'd book to little Juan—
I can't but say that his mamma was right,
If such an education was the true one.
She scarcely trusted him from out her sight;
Her maids were old, and if she took a new
one
You might be sure she was a perfect fright,
She did this during even her husband's life—
I recommend as much to every wife.
9. References
Lord Byron. Available in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron.
Accessed in July 01, 2014.
from Don Juan: Canto 1, Stanzas 47-48. Available in
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/244642. Accessed in July 01,
2014.
Lord Byron's Poems Summary. Available in
http://www.gradesaver.com/lord-byrons-poems/study-guide/short-
summary/. Accessed in July 01, 2014.
Lord Byron (1788-1824). Available in
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/byron_lord.shtml.
Accessed in July 01, 2014.
Byron's Don Juan: Summary, Quotes and Analysis. Available in
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/byrons-don-juan-
summary-quotes-and-analysis.html#lesson. Accessed in July 01, 2014.
