THEMES
YOUTH and AGE
CHP III
Messalonghi
Don Juan XI
Fare Thee Well!
Idealized youth
Youth used to denote past ‘alas they had been friends in youth’.
Innocence and ignorance…
Byron’s own youth
DJ – I wish they know the life of a young noble… they are young, but know not youth!’
…
Excuses
Blaming parents – ‘untaught in youth, my heart to tame’ (CHP III).
Blames his problems on not having had a good upbringing – puts the responsibility of his actions onto someone else.
Manipulative (to strike a chord emotionally)
One of his ways to manipulate (Anabella) is through describing how she is neglecting her child.
GREATNESS
CHP III
Don Juan (?)
The fate of the Byronic hero – some A05 of his own life – linking It to Napoleon and then of course transgression
Define the ‘Byronic hero’
- An idealized but flawed character
- Epitomised by characteristics such as conflicting emotion, being an outcast, demonstrating a struggle with sexual identity, and a distaste for social institutions.
- Often a suffering of unrequited love.
One critic – ‘Mans greatest tragedy is that he can conceive of a perfection that he cannot attain’. Byron uses the literary artifice of Childe Harold to get around this.
NATURE
CHP III
She walks in beauty
She walks in beauty – nature enhances the woman – she is seen as an aspect of nature, an image…
Good example of transience. Compare to the storms of CHP – she walks in beauty has an almost photographic quality capturing the moment when this girl is part of a scene of nature – the soft light makes her beautiful… (from this Byron idealizes her character ‘thoughts serenely sweet express how pure, how dear their dwelling place’.
Nature a powerful force – in CHP we see an ambivilence/ uncertainty towards nature – prematurely jaded view (which vacillates).
A05 – Byron vs. The Romantics, their differing views
Wordsworthian moments (stanzas __ - __ CHP) attempt to become one with nature
Earth has absolute power over man – earth’s clay vs. human clay in CHP III
Personification of nature – makes it seem more of a threat
Napoleon – nature is unpredictable/ unreliable
Storms etc used as a parallel for life’s emotional ups and downs and events such as wars (esp. in relation to Napoleon) – transience of life... (can be related to Byrons ‘stormy relationships)
-Pathetic fallacy
THE INDIVIDUAL
CHP III
Byron’s literary artifices/ guises? – Beppo/ Don Juan/ Childe Harold
These characters seem to mirror Byron’s mood and situation.
Used to distance himself for the sake of being objective and/or preserving his reputation.
MAN
To Inez
RELATIONSHIPS
The love poems – fare thee well/
JCH
Newfoundland Dog
Fare thee – effects of society on relationships
FRIENDSHIP
JCH
Newfoundland dog
SOCIETY/ THE WORLD
Outcast poem – like exiled childe harolde/ don juan
Fare thee well –
His Cristobel excerpt ‘alas they were friends in youth’… (‘rent asunder’ by society). He suggests that society gossip caused the rift in his and Lady Anabella’s relationship.
On being an outcast…
Audience of the world
Doom/ disappointment in the world
Political view – the world is enslaved
Impermanence of world – transience
ESCAPISM – linked to ‘the world’ etc
Byrons foreign adventure can be seen as a way of attempting to escape the realities of Britain – his ‘world’ and even his own personality.
Byrons own travels – (A05)
He travels
- He travels in his writing also – this suggests an eternal hope that he will find what he seeks and escape what haunts him.
- When he goes to Italy he lightens up – his adopts Ottava Rima form in Beppo and DJ – more humorous and casual than earlier CHP written in Spenserian ___ (Spenser – in the tradition of British poets) – less pretentious.
- We also see an example of this in JCH in his reminiscing of their misbehaviours abroad and cryptic allusions to homosexuality ‘the old Horatian way’ – describing a homosexual friend as a ‘man of method’ and aligning him with Jesus ‘wash his reverend feet’. Through use of archaism and references to the Greeks and Romans he seem to express a longing to seek the more liberal society’s of earlier times – perhaps his travels to Italy are a manifestation of this.
- Byron seems to want to find hope – Childe Harold can be seen as the prototype of Modern Man – wandering
He digresses
His digression (moving of topic onto vaguely relation points and then onto himself – like Mr Keyte) could also be seen as a form of Escapism – particularly noticeable in CHP III.
BUT… ‘What exile from himself can flee?’
However, he admits ‘what exile from himself can flee?’ in To Inez – he abhor his own character at his inability to find joy in even this woman, because of what her refers to as his ‘demon’ - ‘Thought’; this is ‘the blight of life’ according to Byron.
Byron seems to want to find hope. Childe Harold can be seen as the prototype of modern man wandering through the world trying to find meaning (or as a great outsider?). – post revolution ‘tis to create’.
WRITING
JCH
Don Juan – self-awareness of role of poet ‘heroic syllables’…
CHP
Mention also his love poems – his reasons for writing
Practicality
Writing is highly appropriate to his world – to his society and the educated, literary circle he had familiarised himself with at Harrow and Cambridge.
It was a respectable occupation for a nobleman. He made the money he needed, without seeming like he was in pursuit of it. He also rose to fame and was probably attracted to the fame it drew.
Byron claimed not to write because he loved it – but because it prevented him from going ‘mad’.
Purpose
Seems Byron has an agenda in several of his love poems or the envoi ‘Fare Thee Well!’.
He wants his readership to know his pains, and he wants his subject to realize their offence.
Fare Thee Well – uses literary devices, such as
Reference or allusion to other writers to make a point – Don Juan – ‘you are the ‘best of cut-throats’ do not start, the phrase is Shakespeare’s and not misapplied’
PLACE/ LEVELS
Childe Harold
Sonnet on Chillon
Beppo
MADNESS/ SELF-DESTRUCTION
On being a Byronic hero – fighting for Greece, ascending to greatness
Disased by his personality – describes the character of great men as a ‘contagion’ an ‘infection’ describes the pangs of conscience and moral __ as the cost of being a revered by man.
On being an outcast – looking up towards
Self-destruction – images of the sword rusting ingloriously and the bird beating its breast against its cage (CHP III)
Exile - CHP
Imprisonment - Chillon
(don juan – somewhere where?)
INPRISONMENT
Sonnet on Chillon
CHP III (Byron’s mind-body crisis) – ‘clay-cold bonds’
DEATH
CHP
Mind body distinction in relation to death
Use of death romantically
And ‘I scarce can die’ death of the soul…
Blake’s ‘mind forged manacles’ vs. Byron’s ‘clay cold bonds’
LOVE
She Walks in Beauty
So we’ll go no more a Roving
PARTING
His envoi’s – Fare Thee Well… JCH
LOSS
In terms of love/ death…
Identity…
PHILOSOPHY
Don Juan
TRANSCIENCE
CHP – transience in nature (at the same time its constancy)
Transience of man, of greatness in particular
DON JUAN points:
Digression –
Byron moves from attacking Wellington (recent history) (stanzas 1 to 10) and greatness in general.
Stanzas 11 – 21 – philosophy and death
Self – awareness of the poet in the poem… (writing theme)
Theme of the world
Ottava Rima – form is chatty, causal. He was in Italy when he wrote Don Jaun.