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 Romantic
poet and satirist, famous for his love affairs, and the creator
of the concept of the 'Byronic hero' - a defiant, melancholy young
man, brooding on some mysterious unforgivable act in his past. Byron's
influence on European poetry, music, novel, opera, and painting
has been immense, although the poet was widely condemned on moral
grounds by his contemporaries.
Polygamy may well be held in dread,
Not only as a sin, but as a bore.
Byron was the son of Captain John Byron, and Catherine Gordon of
Gight, an impetuous Scot and his second wife. Byron was born with
a club-foot. He was extremely sensitivity about his lameness - in
his work short and stout Byron glorified proud and arrogant heroes,
who bear their misfortunes bravely and overcome hardships. He was
only 5 feet 8 1/2 inches tall and his widely varying weight ranged
from 137 to 202 pounds - he once said that everything he swallowed
was instantly converted to tallow and deposited on his ribs. Byron's
early childhood years were spent in poor surroundings in Aberdeen,
where he was educated until the age of ten. His father died in 1791,
and the fifth baron's grandson was killed in 1794. After he inherited
the title and property of his great-uncle in 1798, he went on to
Dulwich, Harrow, and Cambridge, where he piled up debts and aroused
alarm with bisexual love affairs. While staying at Newstead in 1802,
he probably first met his half-sister, Augusta Leigh.
In 1807 Byron's first collection of poetry, HOURS OF IDLENESS,
was published. It received bad reviews. The poet answered his critics
with the satire ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWS in 1808 .In the
following year he took his seat in the House of Lords, and set out
on his grand tour, visiting Spain, Malta, Albania, Greece, and the
Aegean.
 Success
came in 1812 when Byron published the first two cantos of CHILDE
HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE (1812-1818). He became an adored character of
London society, he spoke in the House of Lords effectively on liberal
themes, and had a hectic love-affair with Lady Caroline Lamb. During
the summer of 1813 Byron apparently entered into a more than brotherly
relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh. In 1814 Augusta
gave birth to a daughter, who was generally supposed to be Byron's.
In the same year he wrote 'Lara,' a poem about a mystical hero,
aloof and alien, whose identity is gradually revealed and who dies
after a feud in the arms of his page. THE CORSAIR (1814) sold 10,000
copies on the first day of publication. Byron married Anne Isabella
Milbanke in 1815, and their daughter Ada was born in the same year.
The marriage was unhappy, and they obtained a legal separation next
year.
With the rumours of his incest and accumulating debts, Byron left
England in 1816, never to return. He settled in Geneva with Mary
Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, and Claire Clairmont,
who became his mistress. There he wrote the two cantos of Childe
Harold and THE PRISONER OF CHILLON. At the end of the summer
Byron continued his travels, spending two years in Italy. Observing
Byron in an opera box at La Scala in 1816, the French writer Stendhal
later recalled: "I was struck by his eyes... I have never in my
life seen anything more beautiful or more expressive." While staying
in Venice Byron proudly claimed he had bedded different woman on
200 consecutive evenings. His daughter Alegra was born in January
1817 in England - she died in 1822. In an 1819 letter to his publisher
John Murray, Byron wrote: "I am sure my bones would not rest in
an English grave, or my clay mix with earth of that country. I believe
the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed, could I suppose that
any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back
to your soil."
During his years in Italy, Byron wrote LAMENT OF TASSO, inspired
by his visit in Tasso's cell in Rome, MAZEPPA, THE PROPHECY OF DANTE,
and started DON JUAN. He lived with Teresa, Countess Guiccioli,
in Venice, and followed her household to Ravenna. Teresa left her
husband for Byron, and Shelley rented houses in Pisa both for Byron
and for the Gambas, Teresa's family. While in Ravenna and Pisa,
Byron became deeply interested in drama, and wrote among others
THE TWO FOSCARI, SARDANAPALUS, CAIN, and the unfinished HEAVEN AND
EARTH. On January 21, 1821, the day before his 33rd birthday, Byron
wrote in his diary:
Through life's road, so dim and dirty,
I have dragg'd to three and thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing - except, thirty-three.
With the Gambas, Byron left Pisa for Leghorn, where the journalist
and editor Leigh Hunt joined them. He cooperated with Hunt in the
production of The Liberal magazine. After a long creative
period, Byron had come to feel that action was more important than
poetry. With good wishes from Goethe, Byron armed a brig, the Hercules,
and sailed to Greece to aid the Greek's, who had risen against the
Turks. He worked ceaselessly and joined Alexander Mavrocordato on
the north shore of the Gulf of Patras. However, before Byron saw
any serious military action, he contracted the fever from which
he died in Missolonghi on 19 April 1824. Memorial services were
held all over the land. The Greeks wished to bury him in Athens,
but only his heart stayed in the country. Byron's body was returned
to England but refused by the deans of both Westminster and St Paul's.
Finally Byron's coffin was placed in the family vault at Hucknall
Torkard, near Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire.
 So
we'll go no more a roving
So we'll go no more a roving
so late into the night
Though the heart be still as loving
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears the sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
For further reading: The Life, Letters and Journals of
Lord Byron by Thomas Moore (1920); The Dramas of Lord Byron: A
Critical Study by Samuel Claggett Chew (1970); Lord Byron by Paul
Graham Trueblood (1977); Lord Byron and His Contemporaries by
Charles E. Robinson (1982); La Vie De Lord Byron En Italie: Romantic
Reassessment by Teresa Guiccioli (1983); My Recollections of Lord
Byron by Countess Guiccoli (1989); Life of Lord Byron by Roden
B. Noel (1990); Critical Essays on Lord Byron, ed. by Robert F.
Gleckner (1991); Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection
from the Letters of Lord Byron's Daughter and Her Description
of the First Computer, ed. by Betty A. Toole (1992); Lord Byron
by Peter W. Graham (1998); New Essays on Lord Byron ed.by William
D. Brewer (1999) -- a three-volume biography by Leslie A. Marchand
was published in 1958, Marchand also edited Byron's Letters and
Journals (12 volumes, published by John Murray).
Note: The high-level universal computer programming language,
ADA, was named after Byron's daughter Countess Augusta Ada Lovelace
(1815-52), a writer and mathematician, and friend of computer
pioneer Charles Babbage (1791-1871). - See also: Aleksandr Pushkin,
Harriet Beecher Stowe.
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