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

Lord Byron - George Gordon Byron

(1788-1824)

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.

2. A summary of his lifetime

Byron spent his early years in Aberdeen, and was educated atHarrow School and Cambridge University. In 1809, he left for a two-yeartour of a number of Mediterranean countries. He returned to Englandin 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, almostcertainly Byron's. The following year Byron married Annabella Milbanke,with whom he had a daughter, his only legitimate child. The coupleseparated in 1816.

Facing mounting pressure as a result of his failed marriage,scandalous affairs and huge debts, Byron left England in April 1816 andnever returned. He spent the summer of 1816 at Lake Geneva withPercy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary and Mary's half sister ClaireClairmont, with whom Byron had a daughter.

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 19April 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.

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 ultimatelack 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.

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)

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.

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 inhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/byron_lord.shtml. Accessed in July 01, 2014.

Byron's Don Juan: Summary, Quotes and Analysis. Available inhttp://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/byrons-don-juan-summary-quotes-and-analysis.html#lesson. Accessed in July 01, 2014.