Romanticism and Byron

Thus Romanticism is the historical period of literature in which modern readers most begin to
see a reflection of themselves and their own modern conflicts and desires.
The Romantic period has passed, but its styles and values still thrive today in popular forms
and familiar attitudes, e.g.:
feelings, emotions, and imagination take priority over logic and facts ("Anything you want
you can have if you only want it enough." cf. romance narrative)
belief in children's innocence and wisdom; youth as a golden age; adulthood as corruption
and betrayal
nature as beauty and truth, esp. the sense of nature as the sublime (god-like awesomeness
mixing ecstatic pleasure mixed with pain, beauty mixed with terror)
heroic individualism; the individual separate from the masses
"outsiders" as representatives of special worth excluded by rigid societies or irrational norms
nostalgia for the past
desire or will as personal motivation
intensification, excess, and extremes (see Romantic rhetoric)
common people idealized as dependable source of true common sense and sentiment
idealized or abstract settings; characters as symbolic types
the gothic as nightmare world of intense emotions and complex psychology
Any of these qualities may be associated with Romanticism, but none of them defines or limits
Romanticism absolutely. Some of them even contradict each other.
Think of Romanticism as an "umbrella term" under which many stylistic themes and values
meet and interact; e.g. the gothic, the sublime, the sentimental, love of nature,
the romance narrative. (Most popular films today are romance narratives with simple Romantic
characters (dashing young heroes, sweet but independent damsels, ugly corporate or state
villains) operating by codes of chivalry and honor.)
Lord Byron's Poems Summary

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.
She Walks in Beauty was written by Byron about Mrs. Wilmot, his cousin
Robert Wilmots wife. It develops the conceit of a speakers awe upon seeing
a woman walking in her own aura of beauty. Among Byrons most famous
verse, it is a surprisingly chaste poem from so debaucherous an author.
When We Two Parted (1816) conveys the authors sorrow at the loss of his
beloved. Many scholars believe Byron falsely attributed its writing to 1808 in
order to protect the identity of its subject, Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster,
who was linked to the Duke of Wellington in a scandalous relationship. The
poem is highly autobiographical in that it recounts Byrons emotional state
following the end of his secret affair with Lady Frances and his frustration at
her unfaithfulness to him with the Duke.
Lord Byron's Poems Themes

The power of Nature
To Byron, Nature was a powerful complement to human emotion and
civilization. Unlike Wordsworth, who idealized Nature and essentially deified
it, Byron saw Nature more as a companion to humanity. Certainly, natural
beauty was often preferable to human evil and the problems attendant upon
civilization, but Byron also recognized Natures dangerous and harsh
elements. The Prisoner of Chillon connects Nature to freedom, while at the
same time showing Natures potentially deadly aspects in the harsh waves
that seem to threaten to flood the dungeon. Childe Harolds Pilgrimage looks
to Nature as a refuge from human conflict, but sees there, amid the
avalanches and volcanoes, the seething fury of the natural world.
The folly of "love"

Throughout his life, Byron sought the perfect object of his affections, which
paradoxically made him a fickle and unstable lover to many women (and
men). His poetry reflects this tension, although usually with the weight being
on the side of capricious love. He idealizes women he knows in his opening
stanzas to the first three cantos of Childe Harolds Pilgrimage, turning them
into muses who inspire their respective narratives. However, the fact that
each canto has a different woman as its muse points to infidelity on the part
of Byrons creative genius. She Walks in Beauty, perhaps his most famous
poem dedicated to an individual woman, extols the virtues of a woman with
whom Byron was never romantically involved. This theme recurs throughout
Byrons poetry: the ideal love is that which is unattainable. Finally, in Don
Juan Byron mocks the ideal of love even as his hapless protagonist falls into
various womens beds.
The enduring power of art

Even as he bewailed the loss of classical culture through the despoiling of Greek
ruins, Byron saw permanence in the art created by these cultures and by his own
contemporaries. In the fourth canto of Childe Harolds Pilgrimage, Byron notes
that even the greatest civilizations decline, yet their art and literature remain. He also
contrasted the destructive power of oppressive nations (such as Napoleons France)
with the creative power of the artist to bring into being that which had not, until that
point, existed. In keeping with this theme, Byron used his poetry to demonstrate the
ephemeral nature of human civilization while creating works of art that would survive
long after any empire of his own day.

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Thus Romanticism is the historical period of literature in which modern readers most begin to

Lord Byron's Poems Summary

Lord Byron's Poems Themes

The folly of "love"

The enduring power of art

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