George Gordon Byron 1788/1824

Life and works

He studied in Cambridge, were he was good at sports and very literate. He started to become very
famous thanks to his writings, like Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, a collection of four cantos that
became very popular. But in 1816 he was surrounded by scandals and debts, so he left England
forever and moved to Milan, were he became involved with patriotic plots against the Austrian
rule. Then he moved to Pisa to join his friend Shelley, who died after a short time. Byron then
moved to Greek to fight for independence against Turkey, where he died in 1824, thus becoming a
national hero.
The Byronic hero
He was the only poet of his age to become really popular in Europe, but he never even considered
himself a Romantic poet. The Byronic hero is a passionate, moody, restless and mysterious man
with some terrible secret to hide. His main characteristic is a proud individualism who is always
struggling against society. He is a constant contrast, in fact he has rough manners even though he
is noble, he is handsome but his looks are hard. He is irresistible for women, but he’s not even
interested in them; all other men either admire him or envy him.
Byron’s individualism
Byron firmly believed in individual liberty, he wanted all men to be free and thus he fought tyrants
in his life. To reach a satirical aim he denounced the evils of society by using the witty style of 18 th
century.
The style
He constantly referred to 18th century poetic diction even though he was romantic. He displayed a
strong interest in colloquial language.