Contents: introduction chapter I family and youth

First career and first trip to the East

In 1807, Byron's teenagers were collected under the title "Hours of Idleness"; Although the booklet only shows lighter forms of the romantic Weltschmerz, it was heavily criticized by the Edinburgh Review. The enraged author went on the offensive against English bards and Scottish commentators (1809), a gift and a satire of satire, the first appearance of a joke that set him apart from the great English Romantics, and he was known for his aristocratic worldview and depended on a classical education. .

In 1809, a two-year journey through the Mediterranean countries provided material for the first two cantons of Childe Harold's tomb. Their publication in 1812 brought Byron fame, as they embodied the most famous features of romanticism of the late eighteenth century: colorful descriptions of exotic nature, meditative reflections on the futility of earthly things, lyrical freedom, uplift, and, above all, a new hero. , beautiful and lonely, terribly mysterious, but with a strong passion for life⁷.

As his fame spread, Byron stunned London's high society. After relationships with Lady Caroline Lamb and Mrs. Oxford, his cousin, and adulterous love for his half-sister Augusta, he not only rebuked him, but the guilt and destruction he had always been prone to made his feelings crystal clear. Since then, the theme of kinship has dominated his epic tales published between 1812 and 1816: "Giaur ", "The Bride of Abydos", "The Corsair", "Lara", "The Siege of Corinth" and " Parisina" . The love of crime, though genuine and unbearable even as a criminal, was a fitting metaphor for the tragic state of man, cursed by God for his irresponsible sins, condemned by society and hated by himself. Thus, the tales add a new dimension of depth to Byron's protagonist: in his complete alienation, he actively takes upon himself the tragic destruction that turns natural instinct into an unforgivable sin, and deliberately transfers his rebellious position to all accepted ideas as a person who opposes. the right order of things.
Thus, seeking relief in an imaginary exploration of his tormented mind, Byron hoped for peace and reconciliation in a more peaceful life. But his marriage to Anna Isabella Milbank (January 1, 1815) soon fell apart, and he left her a year later. London society could ignore the peculiarities of Byron's personal life, but the satire "Stans to the Weeping Lady" against the princely regent added to the corsair caused hysterical insult in the Tories, in his hands separation from life. the woman became an effective weapon. April 25, 1816 Byron was forced to leave his homeland and never returned.

In 1798, with the death of his great uncle, Lord Byron of the Wicked Fifth, George Rochdale became 6th Baron Byron, heir to Newstead Abbey, the family throne in Nottinghamshire. He enjoyed the role of a nobleman who was proud of his coat of arms, which carried the motto "Cred Byron" ("Trust Byron") with a mermaid and bay horses⁸.

In 1800, a "growth of passion" for his cousin Margaret Parker inspired him to "first strike at poetry". From 1801 to 1805 he attended Harrow School, where he was an orator, wrote poetry and played sports. He also formed the first of these passionate bonds with other, mostly younger boys, which he enjoyed throughout his life; before she reached puberty, she was sexually abused by a servant. There is no doubt that he has strong bisexual inclinations, although relationships with women usually seem to satisfy his emotional needs, but not always.

In the summer of 1803 he fell in love with his distant relative, the beautiful and betrothed Mary Chaworth of Annesley Hall, so much so that he stopped studying to be with her for a while. Years later, he told Thomas Medwin that all of his "tales of the celestial nature of women" came from the "perfection" of the imagination he created in Mary Chaworth .

began a cordial correspondence with his sister Augusta, who was five years older than him. He asked her to look at him not only as a "brother", but also as "her warmest and kindest friend". Stepping away from his capricious, often abusive mother, he approached Augusta.

Byron studied at Trinity College, Cambridge from October 1805 to July 1808 and received a master's degree. In "The Most Romantic Period of His Life", he experienced "strong but pure love and passion" for John Eddleston, two years his junior, the Trinity Choir. He was less interested in intellectual training than London games such as fencing and boxing lessons, theatre, demons and gambling. He lived a lavish life and began to accumulate debts that plagued him for years. In 1803 in Southwell, where his mother had moved, he prepared his poems for printing⁹.

In November 1806, he distributed his first book of poetry around Southwell. Fugitive Pieces, a self-published and anonymous novel, is a collection of poetry inspired by his early passions, friendships and experiences in Harrow, Cambridge and elsewhere. When his literary adviser, the local minister, the venerable John Thomas Becher, objected to the overt eroticism of some lines, Byron pressed the cover. A revised and expunged collection of poems was published in January 1807 as "Poems in Various Circumstances" in 100 copies, as well as privately and anonymously. In June, the collection Leisure Hours was published by George Gordon, Lord Byron, Minor. The new verses in this first volume of his poetry are more than classical translations from the classics and imitations of themes from Thomas Grey , Thomas Chatterton and Robert Burns to Romantics and contemporaries such as Walter Scott and Thomas Moore. There were no original editions of erotica and satire, which enlivened poetry in private editions. The work is valuable in that it reveals the influence, interests, talents and orientation of the young poet. In On the Change of Teachers at the Great Public School, he uses heroic songs to satirical effect in the style of Alexander Pope, Byron's role model throughout his career. Apparently, in his autobiographical poems, Byron experiments with personalities, which consist of his real personality and imaginary elements that reveal and hide it. Groups of verses on the same subject show that he understands the effectiveness of multiple points of view.

As a published poet Byron returned to Cambridge in June 1807. In addition to renewing his acquaintances, he also struck up a strong friendship with his beloved "lover" John Kem Hobhouse. A pro-liberal in politics, Byron joined Hobhouse at the Cambridge Whig Club. In February 1808, the influential Whig journal The Edinburgh Review anonymously published Henry Bruham's account of the hours of unemployment, which combined unwarranted personal aggression against the author with justified criticism of the book. The hateful comment had a beneficial effect. The wrathful and furious attitude of Byron, the Latin, has from time to time set aside his verses and began to avenge himself with satire, and his poetic commentaries on the present "British Bards", which began the previous year, have expanded and erupted against Scottish reviewers¹⁰.

In March 1809, two months after receiving the majority, he took his seat in the House of Lords. Byron's first major poetic work soon became English Bards and Scottish Commentators. The satire was published anonymously in a print run of 1,000 copies. Inspired by the Pope, the poem in the heroic songs of his idol Dunciadasi serves an impartial purpose against many contemporary poets and playwrights, especially Walter Scott, Robert Southey , William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge . His main target is critics. Among these "harpies to be fed", he denounces the "immortal" Francis Geoffrey, who erroneously wrote offensive comments about downtime hours in the Edinburgh Commentary.

The satire created a stir and drew general acclaim from commentators. The overall goal, as the preface says, is "to get others to write better." Of the greatest Romantic poets, Byron was most sympathetic to neoclassicism with its order, discipline and clarity. The significance of the English bards and Scottish commentators lies not only in its force and vitality, but also in its lively promotion of the neoclassical qualities of Byron's poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Dryden and Pope, and the Gifford of his time. . His admiration for the pope never waned, and he was inspired by the August role of censorship and morality, as illustrated in Horace's Clues (written 1811), The Curse of Minerva (written 1811), and The Bronze Age. not completely abandoned . Written in 1822-1823).

Feeling revenge on critics, Byron longed to go abroad, which he had long dreamed of. Despite his debts, he raised enough money to start his journey east to the Mediterranean. Dreaming of recording the innumerable experiences that the journey gave him, Byron began writing an autobiographical poem in Ioannina, Greece on October 31, 1809, in which he recorded the adventures and reflections of Childe Nose (a combination of archaic titles for the youth of the nobility). birth and ancient form of the surname); he later changed the hero‘s name to Harold. Spenser's stanza, on which he left his impressions, was no doubt reprinted in an anthology, which he picked up during his journey after reading The Ferry Queen by Edmund Spenser . Byron completed his first canton in Athens at the end of the year.

Turning south, he went with Hobhouse to Missolonghi and on Christmas night 1809 set out for Athens. They lived with Mrs. Tarsia at the foot of the Acropolis. Macri is the widow of a Greek vice-consul of Great Britain. Byron soon fell in love with his three daughters under the age of 15, but especially with 12-year-old Teresa, "servant of Athens¹¹".

to Cape Sounion overlooking the islands and to Marathon, where the Athenians defeated the invading Persians in 490 BC. e., heightened for him the terrible contrast between the glory and power of ancient Greece and its modern shame. Ten years later, he expressively evoked these scenes and feelings in bytes often quoted in The Greek Isles and the Don Juan Marathon.

In March 1810, Byron and Hobhouse extended their tour of Turkey. On 28 March in Smyrna he completed Childe Harold's second cantata, which included his thoughts on adventures in Albania and Greece. He visited the plain of Troy, and on 3 May read the novel The Hero and Leander by Ovid Hobhouse , imitating the boldness of Leander in sailing to the Hellespont; a week later, the lines "written after the voyage from Sestos to Abydos" reminded him of his pride in this exploitation. In July he returned to Athens, where he settled in a Capuchin monastery near the Acropolis. Here he learned Italian and modern Greek, just as he learned Armenian from the monks in Venice six years later.

Intervening in literary composition, he first developed Explanatory Notes to Childe Harold; then in February and March 1811 he wrote two poems in heroic songs. Advice from Horace, a continuation of the English Bards and Scottish Commentators, eulogies of Dryden, Pope, Swift and Butler, and a satire of contemporary poetry and drama¹².

Byron arrived in Sherness, Kent, on July 14, two years and 12 days after his departure. On August 9, Augusta wrote that during her travels she had nothing but "bilingualism and the habit of chewing tobacco", but this statement was insincere. "If I were a poet," he thought, "... the Greek air made me a poet." He collected source material for any works. In addition, the influence of different people, behaviors, governments and mindsets made him a citizen of the world who could clearly see the expanded political views, superstitions and hypocrisy in the British "narrow island". It is noteworthy that as an epigraph to Childe Harold, he chose an excerpt from Louis Charles Fugeret de Montbronn's Cosmopolitan, oh, Citizen of the World (1753) , which is partly compared with the book he had read about the universe. but if only he could see his country, the front page.

Three weeks after his return, Byron plunged into a long mourning. His mother died on 2 August before he left for Newstead. Whatever his shortcomings, he loved his son, was proud of his accomplishments, and ran Newstead economically in his absence. “I only had one friend in the world,” he exclaimed, “and he left. The news of the death of two classmates greatly affected the grief. Then, in October, he learned that former Trinity College choirmaster John Edleston had died of consumption. Deeply moved, he lamented his disappearance in Tirzaghi's Lines (1811), in which a woman's name obscures the subject's true identity and gender. He also remembered Edleston as an addition to Child Harold.

In January 1812, Byron allied himself with the Liberal Whigs and restored his position in the House of Lords. During his political career, he spoke three times in the House of Lords and took part in unpopular parties. In his first speech on 27 February, he defended the sock weavers at his home in Nottinghamshire, who broke their improved looms or frames, fired them, and almost starved to death; he opposed a bill prepared by a ruthless and unjust government. On April 21, he demanded the release of Catholics, which became the most controversial issue of the day.

On his return to England in July 1811, Byron gave Childe Harold's manuscript to R. S. Dallas, publishing consultant for English bards and Scottish commentators. Dallas enthusiastically showed the poem to Scott and South's respected publisher, John Murray II, who agreed to publish Byron and began a close relationship between publisher and poet.

On March 10, 1812, Murray Child published Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos I and II. 500 liter copies at 30 shillings each were sold in three days. Two days later, an edition of 3,000 octaves entered the market at a price of 12 shillings. Shortly after Childe Harold's appearance, Byron said, "I woke up one morning and found myself famous." Murray published five editions of the poem in 1812 alone, and the 10th and final individual edition in 1815. In less than six months, sales reached 4,500 copies. In the Edinburgh Commentary, Geoffrey Child noted "Harold's inherent freedom and boldness of thought and expression, and the remarkable power and happiness of diction" as "his chief excellence".

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos I and II can be read as Byron's poetic diary of his travels in the Mediterranean and the East in 1809-1811. But the work's international popularity is due to the Weltschmerz's strong expression, not its recognition as a travelogue. , or "world-weariness" resulting from the turmoil of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars that devastated European society.

Canto I Harold, "heartbroken" by his "heartless and godless joy" of life, sends his native Albion on a pilgrimage for peace and spiritual rebirth. In the vein of the Quest poem, Childe Harold is reminiscent of medieval novels subtitled Romount in which hero knights go in search of sacred objects, and is portrayed in the bytes and archaic language of Spencer’s Queen Feri .

tried to separate himself from his protagonist, describing Harold as a "fictional hero", but his students, seeing many and striking similarities, continued to identify the artist with his protagonist. ... Although he also speculated about such relationships, Walter Scott acknowledged that Harold Byron created a new and important type of romantic character that reappeared in almost all of his main characters.

Harold is the first "Hero of the Baron". Of the complex ancestors ( which the younger Peter L. Torlev unexpectedly noticed ), he is inherited with hereditary traits from Prometheus, the Devil Milton , Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, villa heroes. Gothic novels by Horace Walpole and Anne Radcliffe, Carl Moore by Friedrich von Schiller and Marmion by Sir Walter Scott. Torlev points out that, judging from their complex origins, Byron's various protagonists show considerable diversity rather than uniformity. Their attributes include such noble qualities as romantic melancholy, guilt for secret sin, pride, disobedience, annoyance, alienation, revenge, repentance, capriciousness and honor, altruism, courage, pure love for a tender woman.

The hotels and living rooms of the Whig communities fought for Byron's existence and made him a lion. At Holland House, he met an enthusiastic, enthusiastic Mrs. Caroline Lamb, who at first described her as "crazy—bad and dangerous to date". Their hard work continued all summer long until Byron abandoned it; he continued his studies by burning the "images" in his paintings and turning their relationship into a gothic romance in the novel Glenarvon (1816).

Despite the result, his relationship with Mrs. Caroline led him to befriend his mother-in-law, the intelligent Elizabeth Milbank Lamb, Lady Melbourne. Through him, in September, he firmly proposed to his niece Anna Isabella (Annabella) Milbank as a possible means of Caroline's escape. Annabella, a 20-year-old bluestocking girl, is well known for literature and philosophy and has shown her talent for mathematics. He declined the offer, believing that Byron would never be "an object of strong affection to be happy in married life." Byron accepted the refusal with good humor and, perhaps, with relief; In a letter dated 18 October 1812, he thanked Mrs. Melbourne for her efforts with the "Queen of Parallelograms". By November he was working with the mature Jane Elizabeth Scott, patroness of the Reform Movement, at Oxford.