Halleck's New English Literature · Chapter 73George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron, 1788-1824
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[Illustration: GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON. From a portrait by Kramer.]
Life.—Byron was born in London in 1788. His father was a reckless, dissipated spendthrift, who deserted his wife and child. Mrs. Byron convulsively clasped her son to her one moment and threw the scissors and tongs at him the next, calling him "the lame brat," in reference to his club foot. Such treatment drew neither respect nor obedience from Byron, who inherited the proud, defiant spirit of his race. His accession to the peerage in 1798 did not tend to tame his haughty nature, and he grew up passionately imperious and combative.
Being ambitious, he made excellent progress in his studies at Harrow, but when he entered Cambridge he devoted much of his time to shooting, swimming, and other sports, for which he was always famous. In 1809 he started on a two years' trip through Spain, Greece, and the far East. Upon his return, he published two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which describe his journey.
This poem made him immediately popular. London society neglected its old favorite, Scott, and eagerly sought out the handsome young peer who had burst suddenly upon it. Poem after poem was produced by this lion of society, and each one was received with enthusiasm and delight. Probably no other English poet knew such instant widespread fame as Byron.
Suddenly and unexpectedly this adulation turned to hatred. In 1815 Byron married Miss Milbanke, an heiress, but she left him a year later. Although no reason for the separation was given, the public fastened all the blame upon Byron. The feeling against him grew so strong that he was warned by his friends to prepare for open violence, and finally, in 1816, he left England forever.
His remaining eight years were spent mostly in Italy. Here, his great beauty, his exile, his poetry, and his passionate love of liberty made him a prominent figure throughout Europe. Notwithstanding this fame, life was a disappointment to Byron. Baffled but rebellious, he openly defied the conventions of his country; and seemed to enjoy the shock it gave to his countrymen.
[Illustration: BYRON AT SEVENTEEN. From a painting.]
The closing year of his life shone brightest of all. His main activities had hitherto been directed to the selfish pursuit of his own pleasure; and he had failed to obtain happiness. But in 1823 Byron went to Greece to aid the Greeks, who were battling with Turkey for their independence. Into this struggle for freedom, he poured his whole energies, displaying "a wonderful aptitude for managing the complicated intrigues and plans and selfishnesses which lay in the way." His efforts cost him his life. He contracted fever, and, after restlessly battling with the disease, said quietly, one April morning in 1824, "Now I shall go to sleep." His relatives asked in vain for permission to inter him in Westminster Abbey. He was buried in the family vault at Hucknall, Notthinghamshire, not far from Newstead Abbey.
[Illustration: NEWSTEAD ABBEY, BYRON'S HOME.]
Early Works.—The poems that Byron wrote during his brilliant sojourn in London, amid the whirl of social gayeties, are The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, Parisina, Lara, and The Siege of Corinth. These narrative poems are romantic tales of oriental passion and coloring, which show the influence of Scott. They are told with a dash and a fine-sounding rhetoric well fitted to attract immediate attention; but they lack the qualities of sincere feeling, lofty thought, and subtle beauty, which give lasting fame.
His next publication, The Prisoner of Chillon (1816), is a much worthier poem. The pathetic story is feelingly told in language that often displays remarkable energy and mastery of expression and versification. His picture of the oppressive vacancy which the Prisoner felt is a well-executed piece of very difficult word painting:—
"There were no stars, no earth, no time, No check, no change, no good, no crime— But silence, and a stirless breath Which neither was of life nor death; A sea of stagnant idleness, Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!"
[Illustration: CASTLE OF CHILLON.]
Dramas.—Byron wrote a number of dramas, the best of which are Manfred (1817) and Cain (1821). His spirit of defiance and his insatiable thirst for power are the subjects of these dramas. Manfred is a man of guilt who is at war with humanity, and who seeks refuge on the mountain tops and by the wild cataract. He is fearless and untamed in all his misery, and even in the hour of death does not quail before the spirits of darkness, but defies them with the cry:—
"Back to thy hell! Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel! Thou never shall possess me, that I know; What I have done is done; I bear within A torture which could nothing gain from thine; * * * * * Back, ye baffled fiends! The hand of death is on me—but not yours!"
Cain, while suffering remorse for the slaying of Abel, is borne by Lucifer through the boundless fields of the universe. Cain yet dares to question the wisdom of the Almighty in bringing evil, sin, and remorse into the world. A critic has remarked that "Milton wrote his great poem to justify the ways of God to man; Byron's object seems to be to justify the ways of man to God."
The very soul of stormy revolt breathes through both Manfred and Cain, but Cain has more interest as a pure drama. It contains some sweet passages and presents one lovely woman,—Adah. But Byron could not interpret character wholly at variance with his own. He possessed but little constructive skill, and he never overcame the difficulties of blank verse. A drama that does not show wide sympathy with varied types of humanity and the constructive capacity to present the complexities of life is lacking in essential elements of greatness.
Childe Harold, The Vision of Judgment, and Don Juan.—His best works are the later poems, which require only a slight framework or plot, such as Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Vision of Judgement, and Don Juan.
The third and fourth cantos of Childe Harold, published in 1816 and 1818, respectively, are far superior to the first two. These later cantos continue the travels of Harold, and contain some of Byron's most splendid descriptions of nature, cities, and works of art. Rome, Venice, the Rhine, the Alps, and the sea inspired the finest lines. He wrote of Venice as she—
"…Sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! * * * * * She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, Rising with her tiara of proud towers At airy distance."
He calls Rome—
"The Niobe of nations! there she stands. Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; An empty urn within her wither'd hands, Whose holy dust was scattered long ago."
The following description, from Canto III, of a wild stormy night in the mountains is very characteristic of his nature poetry and of his own individuality:—
"And this is in the night:—Most Glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight— A portion of the tempest and of thee! How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! And now again 'tis black,—and now, the glee of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth"
When George III. died, Southey wrote a poem filled with absurd flattery of that monarch. Byron had such intense hatred for the hypocrisy of society that he wrote his Vision of Judgment (1822) to parody Southey's poem and to make the author the object of satire. Pungent wit, vituperation, and irony were here handled by Byron in a brilliant manner, which had not been equaled since the days of Dryden and Pope. The parodies of most poems are quickly forgotten, but we have here the strange case of Byron's parody keeping alive Southey's original.
Don Juan (1819-1824), a long poem in sixteen cantos, is Byron's greatest work. It is partly autobiographic. The sinister, gloomy Don Juan is an ideal picture of the author, who was sore and bitter over his thwarted hopes of liberty and happiness. Therefore, instead of strengthening humanity with hope for the future, this poem tears hope from the horizon, and suggests the possible anarchy and destruction toward which the world's hypocrisy, cant, tyranny, and universal stupidity are tending.
The poem is unfinished. Byron followed Don Juan through all the phases of life known to himself. The hero has exciting adventures and passionate loves, he is favored at courts, he is driven to the lowest depths of society, he experiences a godlike happiness and a demoniacal despair.
Don Juan is a scathing satire upon society. All its fondest idols,—love, faith, and hope,—are dragged in the mire. There is something almost grand in the way that this Titanic scoffer draws pictures of love only to mock at them, sings patriotic songs only to add—
"Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung The modern Greek in tolerable verse,"
and mentions Homer, Milton, and Shakespeare only to show how accidental and worthless is fame.
Amid the splendid confusion of pathos, irony, passion, mockery, keen wit, and brilliant epigram, which display Byron's versatile and spontaneous genius at its height, there are some beautiful and powerful passages. There is an ideal picture of the love of Don Juan and Haidee:—
"Each was the other's mirror, and but read Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem."
"…they could not be Meant to grow old, but die in happy spring, Before one charm or hope had taken wing."
As she lightly slept—
"…her face so fair Stirr'd with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air; Or as the stirring of a deep clear stream Within an Alpine hollow, when the wind Walks o'er it."
General Characteristics.—The poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge shows the revolutionary reaction against classicism in literature and tyranny in government; but their verse raises no cry of revolt against the proprieties and moral restrictions of the time. Byron was so saturated with the revolutionary spirit that he rebelled against these also; and for this reason England would not allow him to be buried in Westminster Abbey.
As Byron frequently wrote in the white heat of passionate revolt, his verse shows the effects of lack of restraint. Unfortunately he did not afterwards take the trouble to improve his subject matter, or the mold in which it was cast. Swinburne says, "His verse stumbles and jingles, stammers and halts, where is most need for a swift and even pace of musical sound."
[Illustration: BYRON'S HOME AT PISA.]
The great power of Byron's poetry consists in its wealth of expression, its vigor, its rush and volume of sound, its variety, and its passion. Lines like the following show the vigorous flow of the verse, the love for lonely scenery, and a wealth of figurative expression:—
"Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains, They crowned him long ago On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds With a diadem of snow."[19]
Scattered through his works we find rare gems, such as the following—
"…when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell."[20]
We may also frequently note the working of an acute intellect, as, for instance, in the lines in which he calls his own gloomy type of mind—
"…the telescope of truth, Which strips the distance of its phantasies, And brings life near in utter nakedness, Making the cold reality too real!"[21]
The answers to two questions which are frequently asked, will throw more light on Byron's characteristics:—
I. Why has his poetic fame in England decreased so much from the estimate of his contemporaries, by whom he seemed worthy of a place beside Goethe? The answer is to be sought in the fact that Byron reflected so powerfully the mood of that special time. That reactionary period in history has passed and with it much of Byron's influence and fame. He was, unlike Shakespeare, specially fitted to minister to a certain age. Again, much of Byron's verse is rhetorical, and that kind of poetry does not wear well. On the other hand, we might reread Shakespeare's Hamlet, Milton's Lycidas, and Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality every month for a lifetime, and discover some new beauty and truth at every reading.
II. Why does the continent of Europe class Byron among the very greatest English poets, next even to Shakespeare? It is because Europe was yearning for more liberty, and Byron's words and blows for freedom aroused her at an opportune moment. Historians of continental literature find his powerful impress on the thought of that time. Georg Brandes, a noted European critic, says:—
"In the intellectual life of Russia and Poland, of Spain and Italy, of France and Germany, the seeds which he had sown, fructified… The Slavonic nations …seized on his poetry with avidity… The Spanish and Italian exile poets took his war cry… Heine's best poetry is a continuation of Byron's work. French Romanticism and German Liberalism are both direct descendants of Byron's Naturalism."
Swinburne gives as another reason for Byron's European popularity the fact that he actually gains by translation into a foreign tongue. His faulty meters and careless expressions are improved, while his vigorous way of stating things and his rolling rhetoric are easily comprehended. On the other hand, the delicate shades of thought in Shakespeare's Hamlet cannot be translated into some European tongues without distinct loss.