George Gordon, Lord Byron

1788-1824

Biography, 1

• Descended from 2 aristocratic families – both colorful and a bit dissolute

• Father dies when Byron is 3; raised by Scottish mother in Aberdeen; taught a right wing Calvinist Presbyterianism (all fun = sin)

• Inherits title from great uncle at 10 years old• Typical upper class education at Harrow and

Cambridge

Biography, 2

• Congenitally lame, made worse by botched surgery; overcomes through athletic prowess

• Published first vol of poetry in 1807 (19 years old); badly received by Edinburgh Review

• 1809-12, tours Portugal, Spain, Malta, Greece, Asia Minor; discovers cultures much more sexually liberated than the Protestant Britains; rumored to have had boy lovers

• 1812 – published first part of Childe Harold; instant bestseller

Biography, 3

• Sits in House of Lords as a Whig (liberal)• Invents literary “Byronic hero”: outsider; makes his own

code; adventurous; a tad misanthropic – public believes all this is true of him

• Series of sexual liasons with aristocratic women• Brief marriage to Annabella Millbanke ends with one

daughter and a legal separation• Incestuous affair with half sister Augusta Leigh (they did

not know one another before the affair)• Socially ostracized, leaves England 1816

Biography, 4

• Lives in Geneva with Percy and Mary Shelley, and Mary’s step sister Claire Clairmont (17 years old!)

• Claire and Byron have a daughter Allegra• 1817 – completely promiscuous in Venice– Enormously productive poetically – finishes Childe Harold,

Manfred, Beppo, and begins Don Juan• 1818 – rejoins the Shelleys in Pisa; writes• 1823 – fights for Greek independence from Ottoman

Empire (just like the Crusades, 800 years later – still “rescuing” Christian Europe from supposed “infidels.” Dies in Greece and becomes a national hero there.

Lady Caroline LambAnnabella, Lady Byron

Augusta Leigh

Countessa Teresa GuiccioliClaire Clairemont

When We Two Parted

Pages 613-4 in your textNote: short line form, ababcdcd, (A & C lines

longer; B & D lines shorter)Contrast version in text with this one <

http://dsteinbe.intrasun.tcnj.edu/Courses/Romant/When%20we%20two%20parted.htm>

What do you think of the extra stanza?

Childe HaroldOh, thou! in Hellas deem’d of heav’nly birth, a Muse, form’d or fabled at the minstrel's will! b Since sham’d full oft by later lyres on earth, a Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill: b Yet there I've wander’d by thy vaunted rill; b Yes! sighed o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine c Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still; b Nor mote my shell awake the weary Nine cTo grace so plain a tale--this lowly lay of mine. c