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Jan 22, 2012 · Learn about the life and works of George Gordon, Lord Byron, the most flamboyant and notorious of the major English Romantic poets. Explore his poetry, personality, politics, sexuality, and legacy in this comprehensive biography.
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet and peer. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest of English poets.
- Overview
- Life and career
Lord Byron was a British Romantic poet and satirist whose poetry and personality captured the imagination of Europe. Although made famous by the autobiographical poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812–18)—and his many love affairs—he is perhaps better known today for the satiric realism of Don Juan (1819–24).
What was Lord Byron’s early life like?
George Gordon Byron was born in 1788, the son of British Capt. John (“Mad Jack”) Byron and Catherine Gordon, a Scottish heiress. After John squandered most of her fortune, she and her son lived on a meagre income in Scotland. In 1789 George unexpectedly inherited the title and estates of his great-uncle.
What was Lord Byron like?
Although handsome, Lord Byron was born with a clubfoot that made him sensitive about his appearance all his life. However, this did not stop him from having numerous affairs with men and women, and his lovers allegedly included his half-sister. Adventurous, he frequently traveled, and he was unconventional; he had a pet bear at college.
How did Lord Byron die?
Byron was the son of the handsome and profligate Captain John (“Mad Jack”) Byron and his second wife, Catherine Gordon, a Scots heiress. After her husband had squandered most of her fortune, Mrs. Byron took her infant son to Aberdeen, Scotland, where they lived in lodgings on a meagre income; the captain died in France in 1791. George Gordon Byron had been born with a clubfoot and early developed an extreme sensitivity to his lameness. In 1798, at age 10, he unexpectedly inherited the title and estates of his great-uncle William, the 5th Baron Byron. His mother proudly took him to England, where the boy fell in love with the ghostly halls and spacious ruins of Newstead Abbey, which had been presented to the Byrons by Henry VIII. After living at Newstead for a while, Byron was sent to school in London, and in 1801 he went to Harrow, one of England’s most prestigious schools. In 1803 he fell in love with his distant cousin, Mary Chaworth, who was older and already engaged, and when she rejected him she became the symbol for Byron of idealized and unattainable love. He probably met Augusta Byron, his half sister from his father’s first marriage, that same year.
In 1805 Byron entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he piled up debts at an alarming rate and indulged in the conventional vices of undergraduates there. The signs of his incipient sexual ambivalence became more pronounced in what he later described as “a violent, though pure, love and passion” for a young chorister, John Edleston. Alongside Byron’s strong attachment to boys, often idealized as in the case of Edleston, his attachment to women throughout his life is an indication of the strength of his heterosexual drive. In 1806 Byron had his early poems privately printed in a volume entitled Fugitive Pieces, and that same year he formed at Trinity what was to be a close, lifelong friendship with John Cam Hobhouse, who stirred his interest in liberal Whiggism.
Byron’s first published volume of poetry, Hours of Idleness, appeared in 1807. A sarcastic critique of the book in The Edinburgh Review provoked his retaliation in 1809 with a couplet satire, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, in which he attacked the contemporary literary scene. This work gained him his first recognition.
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On reaching his majority in 1809, Byron took his seat in the House of Lords, and then embarked with Hobhouse on a grand tour. They sailed to Lisbon, crossed Spain, and proceeded by Gibraltar and Malta to Greece, where they ventured inland to Ioánnina and to Tepelene in Albania. In Greece Byron began Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, which he continued in Athens. In March 1810 he sailed with Hobhouse for Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), visited the site of Troy, and swam the Hellespont (present-day Dardanelles) in imitation of Leander. Byron’s sojourn in Greece made a lasting impression on him. The Greeks’ free and open frankness contrasted strongly with English reserve and hypocrisy and served to broaden his views of men and manners. He delighted in the sunshine and the moral tolerance of the people.
Learn about the life and works of George Gordon Byron, a Romantic poet who wrote Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Don Juan, and many other poems. Explore his themes of passion, rebellion, and social reform in his poetry.
Apr 2, 2014 · Learn about the life and works of Lord Byron, one of the greatest British poets and a leading figure of the Romantic Movement. Explore his amorous lifestyle, his political activism, his famous poems and his tragic death.
Jun 29, 2019 · Learn about the life and works of George Gordon Byron, also known as Lord Byron, one of the leading figures of the Romantic Period. Explore his turbulent personal affairs, his travels, his death, and his legacy in literature and history.
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George Gordon, Lord Byron. Born in London on 22 January 1788 as the son of Captain John ("Mad Jack") Byron and his second wife, the former Catherine Gordon, George Gordon Byron might have seemed destined for the urbane existence for which he later made himself famous.
