Poetry of Byron
by Lord Byron
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AlanWPowers Don Juan was THE most popular work by an English Romantic poet during their period, far and away Byron's greatest achievement, though I like English Bards and Scots Reviewers. Maybe the greatest other poet of the period, Pushkin, of course cribbed a bit from Don Juan, and from Wodrsworth perhaps, creating the height of the narrative poem. Downhill from Pushkin and Byron--to the 20C long poem, Patterson, 77 Dream Songs, etc, all of which I have enjoyed, but....
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The Works of Lord Byron
46 works; 1 member
Author Information
844+ Works 12,158 Members
English poet and dramatist George Gordon, Lord Byron was born January 22, 1788, in London. The boy was sent to school in Aberdeen, Scotland, until the age of ten, then to Harrow, and eventually to Cambridge, where he remained form 1805 to 1808. A congenital lameness rankled in the spirit of a high-spirited Byron. As a result, he tried to excel in show more every thing he did. It was during his Cambridge days that Byron's first poems were published, the Hours of Idleness (1807). The poems were criticized unfavorably. Soon after Byron took the grand tour of the Continent and returned to tell of it in the first two cantos of Childe Harold (1812). Instantly entertained by the descriptions of Spain, Portugal, Albania, and Greece in the first publication, and later travels in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, the public savored Byron's passionate, saucy, and brilliant writing. Byron published the last of Childe Harold, Canto IV, in 1818. The work created and established Byron's immense popularity, his reputation as a poet and his public persona as a brilliant but moody romantic hero, of which he could never rid himself. Some of Byron's lasting works include The Corsair, Lara, Hebrew Melodies, She Walks In Beauty, and the drama Manfred. In 1819 he published the first canto of Don Juan, destined to become his greatest work. Similar to Childe Harold, this epic recounts the exotic and titillating adventures of a young Byronica hero, giving voice to Byron's social and moral criticisms of the age. Criticized as immoral, Byron defended Don Juan fiercely because it was true-the virtues the reader doesn't see in Don Juan are not there precisely because they are so rarely exhibited in life. Nevertheless, the poem is humorous, rollicking, thoughtful, and entertaining, an enduring masterpiece of English literature. Byron died of fever in Greece in 1824, attempting to finance and lead the Byron Brigade of Greek freedom fighters against the Turks. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1881
- Original language
- English
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- Members
- 16
- Popularity
- 1,517,255
- Rating
- (5.00)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook
- ISBNs
- 2
- ASINs
- 2
