Romantic
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
by Bill Ectric on Saturday, October 1, 2005 07:53 pm
When I think of Coleridge, I think of those momentary sparks of intuition I have experienced, when my brain seemed to grasp a clear and divine truth. It's like seeing something from the corner of my eye; when I turn to look more closely - it's gone! If others do not share this impression, that is all right, because subjectivity was a major tenet of the Romantic Movement, of which Coleridge was a founding member.
The Romantic Movement was, in part, a rejection of the cold logic that came from the Age of Reason. Romantics such as Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey emphasized emotion over reason, feelings over intellect. It was a return to spiritual, ephemeral realms of the imagination, often involving legends and heroes from ancient times. While their writing seems quite structured by today's standards, they were actually breaking away from the strict rules of verse prescribed by earlier poets.
Giacomo Leopardi
by Mario on Thursday, January 23, 2003 02:20 pmThe Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi, 1798-1837, was a contemporary of the great English Romantic poets such as Shelley, Keats and Byron who lived in Italy, though he never had the chance to meet them. He was born in Recanati, a small town of the Marche region, then part of the Papal States.
His father was a narrow-minded reactionary and his mother a severe educator. In his early years as a student he was tutored by local clerics who taught him Latin, French and Roman Catholic philosophy. At the age of fourteen he embarked on the study of Greek, English, German, Spanish, philology and the translation of the classics. The next seven years, a period of 'mad and desperate study' as he called it, were spent under his own direction in his father's considerable library.
He acquired an enormous amount of knowledge, but at the same time he ruined his health; he suffered from severe backache and had serious problems with his sight.
In 1822 Leopardi went to Rome, then capital of the backward Papal States, where, apart from meeting some philologists, he met no other man of culture. After six months the poet left the 'eternal city', which he labelled 'narrow and popish'. Leopardi bore within himself the so-called 'nineteenth century disease': the inability to 'adjust oneself to real life'. This condition, according to him, is the main cause of 'boredom'. In using this term Leopardi indicates estrangement from life and inner inertia.
He asserted that 'boredom' is the result of the conflict between Nature and Reason. Nature creates man in a state of happiness: this state kindles emotions and desires, causing the imagination to wander, which elements should contribute to a gratifying life worthy of being lived. Reason, on the other hand, destroys illusion, quenches enthusiasm and extinguishes hope. According to the poet this is the main reason for the unhappiness of mankind. Leopardi's first poems, which he called 'Idylls', are imbued with this pessimistic vision of life.
At the time he was writing the first 'Idylls', collected as "The Canti", he was also writing "Moral Tales", a collection of essays in the form of brief fables, and "Thoughts", 111 short paragraphs which express his moral and philosophical ideas. While working on these essays, Leopardi developed an even more radical pessimism based on the reasoning that if men are born for happiness and it is denied them, there is a tragic 'dissonance' between what they desire and what they can attain from life. Hence, the poet concluded that the cause of human unhappiness is essentially physio-biological. Human beings are destined to lead an unhappy life, to always seek the unreachable in an incomprehensible universe, and to be continually harassed by a Nature which is beautiful but hostile.
A mysterious will
moves All destined events.
All is unknown, except pain.
--The Last Song of Sappho
He then wrote 'The Great Idylls': 'To Silvia', 'The Solitary Thrush' and 'Saturday in the Village' are some poems of this period. At the same time Leopardi was writing "Zibaldone", a vast notebook which recorded his thoughts and ideas on poetry, society, philological questions and psychological enquiries. This work extends over 4,500 pages and was published posthumously.
Two dominant themes of Leopardi's poetry are his inner struggle between logic and emotion and his love-hate relationship with Nature.
Ah! Nature, Nature, why do you
Never keep the promises you made?
Why are your children so cruelly betrayed?
--To Silvia
Another recurring element in Leopardi's writings is the poignant regret for the passing of youth. He considered this period the happiest of our life, the season of dreams and hopes not yet shattered by the hard realities of adult life.
Meanwhile the time of my youth flies,
More precious than fame and laurels,
Dearer than glorious daylight or breath itself
--Remembrances
The poet, who was an atheist and a firm believer in the philosophy of the Enlightenment, supported the theories of sensism that contrasted greatly with the ideas of Catholic writers of his day. His last works reveal a strain of ?Titanism? often present in his first poems:
Let the black wings
Of the greedy bird wheel over me;
Let the wild beast and storms
Disperse my unknown remains,
And the wind erase my memory and name.
--The Younger Brutus
Giacomo Leopardi lived a directionless adulthood, moving from town to town. Milan, Bologna, Florence and Naples were some places where he lived. Wherever he went he was always "followed" by censorship. Being an atheist poet living in Catholic states, (at that time Italy was not a nation, but a conglomeration of small independent states), his works were always scrutinized and often forbidden by local authorities.
Leopardi was the eldest son of an aristocratic family, but his father was unwilling to support a son who hadn?t followed his advice to make a career in the church. He suffered frequent financial crises and died in 1837, a few days short of his thirty-ninth birthday. His works have been, translated and admired by writers, scholars, and poets all over the world. One of his poems, 'The Infinite', has been translated into more than forty languages. There have also been many translations into the English language, and among the American poets and writers known to have been interested in Leopardi are H.W. Longfellow, J. M. Morrison, Herman Melville, Henry Tuckerman, W. D. Howells, Thomas Parsons, Ezra Pound and Robert Lowell. In the field of English literature, Leopari's admirers include Matthew Arnold, George Eliot, A. C. Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, James Thomson ('B.V:'), A.C. Trevelian (who urged to translate Leopardi?s works by Bertrand Russell). Among the English and American translators of the last decade we count the poets G.Singh, J.G.Nichols, Eamon Grennan and Joseph Tusiani.
From my book of translations, 'Selected Works of Giacomo Leopardi', I wish to mention a few lines from the poem 'Of the Beginnings of the Human Race', which concern the fate of the native Americans living in California in the first years of the 19th century. The poet foresaw that their 'primitive and happy life' was going to be swept away by the coming of 'civilization':
The shores, the shaded places,
And the silent woods invaded
By our unrelenting fury.
The outraged people trained
To alien pain and unknown desires;
And their fleeting naked happiness
Beyond the sunset bar pursued.
(Leopardi's note:'Even today in California, among woods, hills and rivers, there are people who do not know the world 'civilization' and, as travelers say, they are very reluctant to assimilate that mean corruption we call culture.')
--Recanati,1822
His father was a narrow-minded reactionary and his mother a severe educator. In his early years as a student he was tutored by local clerics who taught him Latin, French and Roman Catholic philosophy. At the age of fourteen he embarked on the study of Greek, English, German, Spanish, philology and the translation of the classics. The next seven years, a period of 'mad and desperate study' as he called it, were spent under his own direction in his father's considerable library.
He acquired an enormous amount of knowledge, but at the same time he ruined his health; he suffered from severe backache and had serious problems with his sight.
In 1822 Leopardi went to Rome, then capital of the backward Papal States, where, apart from meeting some philologists, he met no other man of culture. After six months the poet left the 'eternal city', which he labelled 'narrow and popish'. Leopardi bore within himself the so-called 'nineteenth century disease': the inability to 'adjust oneself to real life'. This condition, according to him, is the main cause of 'boredom'. In using this term Leopardi indicates estrangement from life and inner inertia.
He asserted that 'boredom' is the result of the conflict between Nature and Reason. Nature creates man in a state of happiness: this state kindles emotions and desires, causing the imagination to wander, which elements should contribute to a gratifying life worthy of being lived. Reason, on the other hand, destroys illusion, quenches enthusiasm and extinguishes hope. According to the poet this is the main reason for the unhappiness of mankind. Leopardi's first poems, which he called 'Idylls', are imbued with this pessimistic vision of life.
At the time he was writing the first 'Idylls', collected as "The Canti", he was also writing "Moral Tales", a collection of essays in the form of brief fables, and "Thoughts", 111 short paragraphs which express his moral and philosophical ideas. While working on these essays, Leopardi developed an even more radical pessimism based on the reasoning that if men are born for happiness and it is denied them, there is a tragic 'dissonance' between what they desire and what they can attain from life. Hence, the poet concluded that the cause of human unhappiness is essentially physio-biological. Human beings are destined to lead an unhappy life, to always seek the unreachable in an incomprehensible universe, and to be continually harassed by a Nature which is beautiful but hostile.
A mysterious will
moves All destined events.
All is unknown, except pain.
--The Last Song of Sappho
He then wrote 'The Great Idylls': 'To Silvia', 'The Solitary Thrush' and 'Saturday in the Village' are some poems of this period. At the same time Leopardi was writing "Zibaldone", a vast notebook which recorded his thoughts and ideas on poetry, society, philological questions and psychological enquiries. This work extends over 4,500 pages and was published posthumously.
Two dominant themes of Leopardi's poetry are his inner struggle between logic and emotion and his love-hate relationship with Nature.
Ah! Nature, Nature, why do you
Never keep the promises you made?
Why are your children so cruelly betrayed?
--To Silvia
Another recurring element in Leopardi's writings is the poignant regret for the passing of youth. He considered this period the happiest of our life, the season of dreams and hopes not yet shattered by the hard realities of adult life.
Meanwhile the time of my youth flies,
More precious than fame and laurels,
Dearer than glorious daylight or breath itself
--Remembrances
The poet, who was an atheist and a firm believer in the philosophy of the Enlightenment, supported the theories of sensism that contrasted greatly with the ideas of Catholic writers of his day. His last works reveal a strain of ?Titanism? often present in his first poems:
Let the black wings
Of the greedy bird wheel over me;
Let the wild beast and storms
Disperse my unknown remains,
And the wind erase my memory and name.
--The Younger Brutus
Giacomo Leopardi lived a directionless adulthood, moving from town to town. Milan, Bologna, Florence and Naples were some places where he lived. Wherever he went he was always "followed" by censorship. Being an atheist poet living in Catholic states, (at that time Italy was not a nation, but a conglomeration of small independent states), his works were always scrutinized and often forbidden by local authorities.
Leopardi was the eldest son of an aristocratic family, but his father was unwilling to support a son who hadn?t followed his advice to make a career in the church. He suffered frequent financial crises and died in 1837, a few days short of his thirty-ninth birthday. His works have been, translated and admired by writers, scholars, and poets all over the world. One of his poems, 'The Infinite', has been translated into more than forty languages. There have also been many translations into the English language, and among the American poets and writers known to have been interested in Leopardi are H.W. Longfellow, J. M. Morrison, Herman Melville, Henry Tuckerman, W. D. Howells, Thomas Parsons, Ezra Pound and Robert Lowell. In the field of English literature, Leopari's admirers include Matthew Arnold, George Eliot, A. C. Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, James Thomson ('B.V:'), A.C. Trevelian (who urged to translate Leopardi?s works by Bertrand Russell). Among the English and American translators of the last decade we count the poets G.Singh, J.G.Nichols, Eamon Grennan and Joseph Tusiani.
From my book of translations, 'Selected Works of Giacomo Leopardi', I wish to mention a few lines from the poem 'Of the Beginnings of the Human Race', which concern the fate of the native Americans living in California in the first years of the 19th century. The poet foresaw that their 'primitive and happy life' was going to be swept away by the coming of 'civilization':
The shores, the shaded places,
And the silent woods invaded
By our unrelenting fury.
The outraged people trained
To alien pain and unknown desires;
And their fleeting naked happiness
Beyond the sunset bar pursued.
(Leopardi's note:'Even today in California, among woods, hills and rivers, there are people who do not know the world 'civilization' and, as travelers say, they are very reluctant to assimilate that mean corruption we call culture.')
--Recanati,1822
Kubla Khan
by kerouacdylan on Tuesday, August 6, 2002 11:46 amSamuel Taylor Coleridge set out to write a poem describing an opium-induced dream he had, the result was Kubla Khan. Kubla Khan is a very mysterious poem; it describes a world not like any humans have ever known. A world where its hard to tell whether it's a place of beauty, full of calm and goodness, or whether it's a dark an sinister strange land. This poem shows the process of describing a dream on paper, something that is impossible to do, a lot like any creative process towards the middle and the end, the idea gets fuzzier and ultimately takes its own completely different form.
The poem Kubla Khan first stanza is like a children's story that's been told over a million times before, where, there is no question of what the story is about. Coleridge describes Xanadu as if he had been there, and even though this world is nothing like are own, he describes it as if it were nothing surprising. He states the name of the sacred river, Alpha that flows through it, as if he'd visited it everyday after work to enjoy the weather. In the first stanza he appears to be entirely confident of this beautiful place that he describes. In the second stanza he writes "And here were forests ancient as the hills" as if this place he described was as clear as day to him, and as if this land was stable, calm and never changing. In the first two stanzas his sentences run smoothly and are short and conscious, giving the feeling of tranquility and assuredness.
In the third stanza things begin to change, as a women shouts for her demon lover; the sentences begin to grow increasingly larger, as if things are out of control, as if Coleridge had to keep writing before he forgot the story he had previously known so well.
The third stanza runs by you quickly, reading it almost becomes a task of finding a place to stop and think of the action that had just passed, but you can't because right as you try another action goes whizzing by. Reading this stanza is like trying to keep up with Coleridge in a race. This stanza is almost like Coleridge has got his dream in his head, its fully clear to him but the more he rights, trying to chase his dream, the more it fades so he in turn writes faster, but the faster he writes the faster the dream becomes hazy again.
He describes scene after scene, first with the forming of a Fountain, and then he describes images of falling rocks and finally the path of the river alpha to the colorless sea passing by "wood and dale". The next thing you know ancestral voices are prophesizing war, though were not informed on who, or any other information concerning this event.
In the next couple of stanzas Coleridge changes pace once again, and goes back to a more peaceful great place, as if forgetting fully about the previous event. When the poem is read, you think that after your told about the ancestral voices prophesizing war, that this will be the mood and direction the poem is going to in the next couple of stanzas, but in fact the truth is the opposite. Coleridge reverts back to a peace full serene place where a woman sings and for the first time Coleridge uses the first person. The person speaking, talks of the women's singing as if it's calling him and he gets lost in the song. When you finally adjust to this pace, in the middle of one of these peaceful sentence he writes "beware beware" and all of a sudden a man with wild eyes and floating hair is described. From out of nowhere this man comes and drinks the honeydew and sucks the paradise out of the place. It comes a shock and is rather frightening when you read this stanza because he sets the mood and then it all of a sudden drastically changes and your never quite sure what's going on, and the author makes no attempt to explain as he rushes threw these turn of events. Like in earlier stanzas, his sentences become extremely long, as if he was afraid of loosing this perfect idea that he had on his head, as if he was driven to get it out on paper before it vanished from his memory as dreams often do.
Though the author was not fully successful in writing down this idea that made perfect sense in his head, it is still a great piece of literature, and because of the fact that it wasn't the way he envisioned it. It goes as a lesson for all artists and creators of anything, that it is impossible for things to come out the way you saw them in your head and that, this is a large part of the creative process. People should embrace it, instead of struggling to make something exactly as one saw it and just let it take its own form, which is a truer form than trying to force art.
The poem Kubla Khan first stanza is like a children's story that's been told over a million times before, where, there is no question of what the story is about. Coleridge describes Xanadu as if he had been there, and even though this world is nothing like are own, he describes it as if it were nothing surprising. He states the name of the sacred river, Alpha that flows through it, as if he'd visited it everyday after work to enjoy the weather. In the first stanza he appears to be entirely confident of this beautiful place that he describes. In the second stanza he writes "And here were forests ancient as the hills" as if this place he described was as clear as day to him, and as if this land was stable, calm and never changing. In the first two stanzas his sentences run smoothly and are short and conscious, giving the feeling of tranquility and assuredness.
In the third stanza things begin to change, as a women shouts for her demon lover; the sentences begin to grow increasingly larger, as if things are out of control, as if Coleridge had to keep writing before he forgot the story he had previously known so well.
The third stanza runs by you quickly, reading it almost becomes a task of finding a place to stop and think of the action that had just passed, but you can't because right as you try another action goes whizzing by. Reading this stanza is like trying to keep up with Coleridge in a race. This stanza is almost like Coleridge has got his dream in his head, its fully clear to him but the more he rights, trying to chase his dream, the more it fades so he in turn writes faster, but the faster he writes the faster the dream becomes hazy again.
He describes scene after scene, first with the forming of a Fountain, and then he describes images of falling rocks and finally the path of the river alpha to the colorless sea passing by "wood and dale". The next thing you know ancestral voices are prophesizing war, though were not informed on who, or any other information concerning this event.
In the next couple of stanzas Coleridge changes pace once again, and goes back to a more peaceful great place, as if forgetting fully about the previous event. When the poem is read, you think that after your told about the ancestral voices prophesizing war, that this will be the mood and direction the poem is going to in the next couple of stanzas, but in fact the truth is the opposite. Coleridge reverts back to a peace full serene place where a woman sings and for the first time Coleridge uses the first person. The person speaking, talks of the women's singing as if it's calling him and he gets lost in the song. When you finally adjust to this pace, in the middle of one of these peaceful sentence he writes "beware beware" and all of a sudden a man with wild eyes and floating hair is described. From out of nowhere this man comes and drinks the honeydew and sucks the paradise out of the place. It comes a shock and is rather frightening when you read this stanza because he sets the mood and then it all of a sudden drastically changes and your never quite sure what's going on, and the author makes no attempt to explain as he rushes threw these turn of events. Like in earlier stanzas, his sentences become extremely long, as if he was afraid of loosing this perfect idea that he had on his head, as if he was driven to get it out on paper before it vanished from his memory as dreams often do.
Though the author was not fully successful in writing down this idea that made perfect sense in his head, it is still a great piece of literature, and because of the fact that it wasn't the way he envisioned it. It goes as a lesson for all artists and creators of anything, that it is impossible for things to come out the way you saw them in your head and that, this is a large part of the creative process. People should embrace it, instead of struggling to make something exactly as one saw it and just let it take its own form, which is a truer form than trying to force art.
Robert Southey
by Bill Ectric on Wednesday, June 5, 2002 03:56 pmIn the early 1800s there were a group of writers known as The Lake Poets. This was because they all lived in the "Lake District" in northwestern England. They are usually listed as a trio, but only two of them are really famous. The Lake Poets are: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and Robert Southey. These poets were part of what was called The Romantic Movement from the late 1700s and early 1800s. As stated elsewhere on this website, "romantic" didn't mean silly valentine-type romance - it was about brave heroes of the past, like Greeks and Romans and also more modern day heroes. Each progressive era of poets and writers tried to speak in a more common, less artificial style, even though by today's standards Robert Southey sounds stilted. It's as though we have to read Southey through the misty fog of another time. Every literary movement sets the stage for the next one, so while some people find the Romanticists "square" and the Transcendentalists "hip", we should acknowledge the contribution of one to another.
For example, Robert Southey (1774-1843), who was from England and went to college at Oxford, made friends with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and made plans with Coleridge to set up a "Utopian Community" along the Susquehanna River in in Pennsylvania in the United States. They never quite finished that goal, even though they married two sisters they had met, and settled to live near each other. There should be more on the subject of this planned community but I have not unearthed it yet.
The fact remains that Coleridge and Southey influenced one another to each accept a point of view that favored the common man, equality of all people, the abolition of slavery, and a poetry that more closely favored the common speach of the day.
I call Robert Southey "the underdog" because his poetry is somewhat harder to "get into" and he has been called, by some, inferior to Coleridge and Wordsworth. The Columbia Encyclopedia say Southey's "reputation as a poet rests upon his friendships with Coleridge and Wordsworth." His writing seems a little old fashion but it reflects modern ideas. Sometimes it conjures visions that are uncomfortable to see:
A poem about slavery Southey wrote:
"High in the air exposed the slave is hung,
To all the birds of heaven, their living food!"
It is a shocking scene but Southey was passionately opposed to slavery as well as war and he does not hold back.
An indication of Southey's popularity during his lifetime is that he was named Poet Laureate in 1813.
The way I discovered Southey was, when I was about five years old, my parents had a set of pseudo-encyclopedias called "The Book of Knowledge" and on the 1950's cover of each hardbound volume was a boy & girl holding hands standing on a streamlined jet-type vessel sailing across continents, characters, physics symbols, and the ocean, and those books held SO much. My favorite pages were where it showed a skeleton, and when you turned the clear page, all the muscles went over the skeleton. Turn the page again and all the vital organs fit in, then the nerves, then the skin.
But one day I chanced to turn the pages FURTHER and I came upon an illustration of and old man sitting in a field holding a skull, with a small boy child in front of him and a small girl child trotting up into the scene. And the poem,
"The Battle of Blenheim" by Robert Southey filled the page below. I must have been barely old enough to understand it - my Mother read it to me and explained it - but the theme of the poem was the futility of war. The old man speaks of a great victory and the little girl says, "But what good came of it?" and the old man says, "That, I cannot tell. But (they say) it was a great victory."
I had almost forgotten about that poem until certain utterances on this website brought it back to me. Robert Southey, one of the Lake Poets.
For example, Robert Southey (1774-1843), who was from England and went to college at Oxford, made friends with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and made plans with Coleridge to set up a "Utopian Community" along the Susquehanna River in in Pennsylvania in the United States. They never quite finished that goal, even though they married two sisters they had met, and settled to live near each other. There should be more on the subject of this planned community but I have not unearthed it yet.
The fact remains that Coleridge and Southey influenced one another to each accept a point of view that favored the common man, equality of all people, the abolition of slavery, and a poetry that more closely favored the common speach of the day.
I call Robert Southey "the underdog" because his poetry is somewhat harder to "get into" and he has been called, by some, inferior to Coleridge and Wordsworth. The Columbia Encyclopedia say Southey's "reputation as a poet rests upon his friendships with Coleridge and Wordsworth." His writing seems a little old fashion but it reflects modern ideas. Sometimes it conjures visions that are uncomfortable to see:
A poem about slavery Southey wrote:
"High in the air exposed the slave is hung,
To all the birds of heaven, their living food!"
It is a shocking scene but Southey was passionately opposed to slavery as well as war and he does not hold back.
An indication of Southey's popularity during his lifetime is that he was named Poet Laureate in 1813.
The way I discovered Southey was, when I was about five years old, my parents had a set of pseudo-encyclopedias called "The Book of Knowledge" and on the 1950's cover of each hardbound volume was a boy & girl holding hands standing on a streamlined jet-type vessel sailing across continents, characters, physics symbols, and the ocean, and those books held SO much. My favorite pages were where it showed a skeleton, and when you turned the clear page, all the muscles went over the skeleton. Turn the page again and all the vital organs fit in, then the nerves, then the skin.
But one day I chanced to turn the pages FURTHER and I came upon an illustration of and old man sitting in a field holding a skull, with a small boy child in front of him and a small girl child trotting up into the scene. And the poem,
"The Battle of Blenheim" by Robert Southey filled the page below. I must have been barely old enough to understand it - my Mother read it to me and explained it - but the theme of the poem was the futility of war. The old man speaks of a great victory and the little girl says, "But what good came of it?" and the old man says, "That, I cannot tell. But (they say) it was a great victory."
I had almost forgotten about that poem until certain utterances on this website brought it back to me. Robert Southey, one of the Lake Poets.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (The Magnificent Seven)
by Meg Wise-Lawrence on Sunday, September 29, 1996 06:14 pmare laughed at
in this nightmare land
--Jack Kerouac "Pomes All Sizes
Originated by art school friends William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, who called everything they hated 'slosh,' including Raphael's 'Transfiguration,' the Pre-Raphaelites rejected the Renaissance and embraced Medieval times. They were sick of the pretentious conventionality of theVictorian era. Like the Beat Generation writers in the 1950's, the Pre-Raphaelites--a hundred years earlier-- were rejecting the oppressiveness and cheap moralizing of their era. Pre-punk rogues and radicals, they were outside of society.
Lord Byron
by Meg Wise-Lawrence on Sunday, September 29, 1996 06:08 pmBorn: 22 January 1788
Place of Birth: London, England
Died: 19 April 1824
Place of Death: Missolonghi, Greece
George Gordon Byron, better known as Lord Byron (the sixth Baron Byron, if you're counting), was nothing if not the prototype of the conflicted Romantic hero. His persona has influenced artists, from Beat writers to rock stars (think of dark dandies like Jim Morrison and Trent Reznor), possibly more than his art itself.
Byron's mother was considered coarse and frivolous by those who knew her, including her son. When the Scotswoman fell in love with Byron's father, everyone advised against marrying the penniless but titled widower. Stubbornly she held her ground and married him. Heavily in debt, he abandoned her. She gave birth to her son in London, naming him after her father. He was born with a club foot which he later attributed to her tight corsets.
Byron was educated at Harrow School and the University of Cambridge. Some fifty years later Harrow would become infamous when stories of wild, homosexual rituals were revealed.
Byron's work was a synthesis of medieval and classical inspiration with a modern sensibility. A fascination with Europe's tempestous, mysterious medieval roots was current at the time, as it still was when the Pre-Raphaelites became popular. Like Sir Walter Scott (who was equally enamored of the medieval times), Byron found the romantic notions of Napoleon very appealing. (Byron was Napoleonic to the end, even having his carriage made as a replica of Bonaparte's.)
But it wasn't just his politics that made him appealing-- Byron was titled. When he read his poetry, people listened. Since Byron was so like a rock star, I find it appropriate to quote a rocker (Joe Strummer when he was with the Clash), "I wasn't born so much as I fell out." That was Lord Byron. Falling into things, seeing where the wind carried him. Poetry, the Greeks, Napoleonic politics-- they all fell into step easily with his life.
An adverse review to his poems Hours of Idleness in the Edinburgh Review sent him into a vengeful tizzy producing the satirical English Bards and Scotch Reviewers in 1809. In that same year, in the midst of one of his first controversies, he took his seat in the House of Lords. His liberal politics weren't exactly welcomed. Suddenly, a trip abroad seemed quite desirable. And so began his two year of tour of Portugal, Spain, and Greece. These settings were to permeate many of his subsequent poems-- like Childe Harold, which featured the proverbial "Byronic hero," a tormented Don Juan.
In 1815, partly to escape an incestuous relationship with his married half-sister, Byron married the prim Annabella Milbanke Noel (1792-1860), whom he'd known primarily through letters. (I wrote a Byron inspired poem here.) After giving birth to a daughter, the remarkable Augusta Ada who in collaboration with Charles Babbage became the first person ever to write a computer program. Ada was Byron's only legitimate child; Annabella left Byron before Ada was born. Her departure was bitter, and amid more controversy Byron fled England once again.
In exile, Byron wrote the third canto of Childe Harold. His fame grew and for a brief time in Britain, he was the sensation. In 1834 (the year Pre-Raphaelite designer William Morris was born) the celebrated composer Berlioz wrote a symphony inspired by Childe Harold.
In Geneva, Byron was visited by Percy and Mary Shelley and her half sister Claire Clairmont, who had obsessively written Byron letters. When he found out how she was related to the Shelley's-- he also knew that Mary's parents were anarchist William Godwin and the feminist pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft-- Byron's interest was piqued.
At one time the Shelley's and Claire came to visit Byron in Geneva (this encounter would be depicted in Ken Russell's movie "Gothic"). Percy Shelley described the house as a menagerie Michael Jackson would envy with "eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon: and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were masters of it." They told ghost stories at night. Mary Shelley went on to write the unmatched "Frankenstein." Dr. Polidori, Byron's doctor/companion who was present at the time, went on to write "The Vampyre," a story directly inspired by Byron's tales. (Dr. Polidori was artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti's great uncle on his mother's side.)
With Claire, Byron had a daughter, Allegra. Missing Ada and fearing his angry and estranged wife would keep him from her life, he convinced Claire to give Allegra over to him. She was devoted to her father and his Italian mistress, whom she called mama. Allegra died in early childhood, as did many children in those days. She wasn't given the headstone Byron had requested because the rector at their church back in England was afraid that the Mrs. Lord Byron wouldn't like it.
In Venice, Byron produced some of his best work, including Don Juan. He continued in his liasons: mercurial infatuations with both women and men. A Dionysian in theory and in fact, he embodied Kierkegaard's tortured Aesthetic man. When Percy Shelley and his party tragically drowned sailing during a squall off the coast of Italy, Byron and their friends created a pagan pyre on the beach to say farewell.
Once a great swimmer who had done marathon swims, he was now a hypochondriac who suffered the side effects of old diseases as well as poor eating habits (he had the tendency to plumpness and would do radical diets worthy of modern times in order to lose weight fast). So despite his weakened state, when he heard of the revolt of the Greeks against the Turks, the idea of participating in a war on the hallowed battlegrounds of classical myth and legend thrilled him, and he joined the Greek insurgents at Missolonghi. He donated much of his money, despite the fact that he owed creditors, and the Greeks made him commander in chief. Three months later, after various attempts at bleeding and so forth, Byron died at 36 (curiously his mathematician/metaphysician daughter, known as Ada, also died at 36). Despite his wishes otherwise, he was buried in England.
Place of Birth: London, England
Died: 19 April 1824
Place of Death: Missolonghi, Greece
George Gordon Byron, better known as Lord Byron (the sixth Baron Byron, if you're counting), was nothing if not the prototype of the conflicted Romantic hero. His persona has influenced artists, from Beat writers to rock stars (think of dark dandies like Jim Morrison and Trent Reznor), possibly more than his art itself.
Byron's mother was considered coarse and frivolous by those who knew her, including her son. When the Scotswoman fell in love with Byron's father, everyone advised against marrying the penniless but titled widower. Stubbornly she held her ground and married him. Heavily in debt, he abandoned her. She gave birth to her son in London, naming him after her father. He was born with a club foot which he later attributed to her tight corsets.
Byron was educated at Harrow School and the University of Cambridge. Some fifty years later Harrow would become infamous when stories of wild, homosexual rituals were revealed.
Byron's work was a synthesis of medieval and classical inspiration with a modern sensibility. A fascination with Europe's tempestous, mysterious medieval roots was current at the time, as it still was when the Pre-Raphaelites became popular. Like Sir Walter Scott (who was equally enamored of the medieval times), Byron found the romantic notions of Napoleon very appealing. (Byron was Napoleonic to the end, even having his carriage made as a replica of Bonaparte's.)
But it wasn't just his politics that made him appealing-- Byron was titled. When he read his poetry, people listened. Since Byron was so like a rock star, I find it appropriate to quote a rocker (Joe Strummer when he was with the Clash), "I wasn't born so much as I fell out." That was Lord Byron. Falling into things, seeing where the wind carried him. Poetry, the Greeks, Napoleonic politics-- they all fell into step easily with his life.
An adverse review to his poems Hours of Idleness in the Edinburgh Review sent him into a vengeful tizzy producing the satirical English Bards and Scotch Reviewers in 1809. In that same year, in the midst of one of his first controversies, he took his seat in the House of Lords. His liberal politics weren't exactly welcomed. Suddenly, a trip abroad seemed quite desirable. And so began his two year of tour of Portugal, Spain, and Greece. These settings were to permeate many of his subsequent poems-- like Childe Harold, which featured the proverbial "Byronic hero," a tormented Don Juan.
In 1815, partly to escape an incestuous relationship with his married half-sister, Byron married the prim Annabella Milbanke Noel (1792-1860), whom he'd known primarily through letters. (I wrote a Byron inspired poem here.) After giving birth to a daughter, the remarkable Augusta Ada who in collaboration with Charles Babbage became the first person ever to write a computer program. Ada was Byron's only legitimate child; Annabella left Byron before Ada was born. Her departure was bitter, and amid more controversy Byron fled England once again.
In exile, Byron wrote the third canto of Childe Harold. His fame grew and for a brief time in Britain, he was the sensation. In 1834 (the year Pre-Raphaelite designer William Morris was born) the celebrated composer Berlioz wrote a symphony inspired by Childe Harold.
In Geneva, Byron was visited by Percy and Mary Shelley and her half sister Claire Clairmont, who had obsessively written Byron letters. When he found out how she was related to the Shelley's-- he also knew that Mary's parents were anarchist William Godwin and the feminist pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft-- Byron's interest was piqued.
At one time the Shelley's and Claire came to visit Byron in Geneva (this encounter would be depicted in Ken Russell's movie "Gothic"). Percy Shelley described the house as a menagerie Michael Jackson would envy with "eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon: and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were masters of it." They told ghost stories at night. Mary Shelley went on to write the unmatched "Frankenstein." Dr. Polidori, Byron's doctor/companion who was present at the time, went on to write "The Vampyre," a story directly inspired by Byron's tales. (Dr. Polidori was artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti's great uncle on his mother's side.)
With Claire, Byron had a daughter, Allegra. Missing Ada and fearing his angry and estranged wife would keep him from her life, he convinced Claire to give Allegra over to him. She was devoted to her father and his Italian mistress, whom she called mama. Allegra died in early childhood, as did many children in those days. She wasn't given the headstone Byron had requested because the rector at their church back in England was afraid that the Mrs. Lord Byron wouldn't like it.
In Venice, Byron produced some of his best work, including Don Juan. He continued in his liasons: mercurial infatuations with both women and men. A Dionysian in theory and in fact, he embodied Kierkegaard's tortured Aesthetic man. When Percy Shelley and his party tragically drowned sailing during a squall off the coast of Italy, Byron and their friends created a pagan pyre on the beach to say farewell.
Once a great swimmer who had done marathon swims, he was now a hypochondriac who suffered the side effects of old diseases as well as poor eating habits (he had the tendency to plumpness and would do radical diets worthy of modern times in order to lose weight fast). So despite his weakened state, when he heard of the revolt of the Greeks against the Turks, the idea of participating in a war on the hallowed battlegrounds of classical myth and legend thrilled him, and he joined the Greek insurgents at Missolonghi. He donated much of his money, despite the fact that he owed creditors, and the Greeks made him commander in chief. Three months later, after various attempts at bleeding and so forth, Byron died at 36 (curiously his mathematician/metaphysician daughter, known as Ada, also died at 36). Despite his wishes otherwise, he was buried in England.
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