Lecture the theme: the romantic age in english literature (1780-1830). Representatives of romanticism

My Soul is Dark
My soul is dark - oh! quickly string
The harp I yet can brook to hear;
And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmurs o’er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again:
If in these eyes there lurk a tear,
‘Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain.

But bid the strain be wild and deep,

Nor let notes of joy be first:
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep,
Or else this heavy heart will burst,
For it hath been by sorrow nursed,
And ached in sleepless silence long;
And now ‘tis doom’d to know the worst,
And break at once - or yield to song.
In 1815 Byron married Miss Isabella Milbanke, but it was an unlucky match. Though Byron was fond of their only child Augusta Ada, and did not want to break up the family, separation was inevitable. The scandal around the divorce was enormous. Byron’s enemies found their opportunity, and used it to the utmost against him.
On April 25, 1816, the poet left England for Switzerland. Here he made the acquaintance of Shelley, the two poets became close friends. While in Switzerland, Byron wrote the third canto of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”, “The Prisoner of Chillon”, the dramatic poem “Manfred” and many lyrics. “The Prisoner of Chillon” describes the tragic fate of the Swiss revolutionary Bonnivard, who spent many years of his life in prison together with his brothers.
In 1817 Byron left Switzerland for Italy. The Italian period (1817- ­1823) is considered to be the summit of Byron’s poetical career. In Italy he wrote “Beppo”(1818), a humorous poem in a Venetian setting, and his greatest work “Don Juan”, the fourth canto of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”, “The Prophecy of Dante”, the dramas “Marino Faliero”, “Cain”. At the same period he wrote his satirical masterpieces “The Vision of Judgement” and “The Age of Bronze”. Unfortunately, the prudery of Victorian critics obscured these poems from the public, and they have never received their due esteem. Special words should be said about “Don Juan”, one of his great poems, a performance of rare artistic skill. Humor, sentiment, adventure, and pathos were thrown together with that same disconcerting incongruity as they were to be found in life. The style is a clever imitation of idiom and phrasing of ordinary conversation, used with great cunning for satiric and comic effects.
The war of Greece against the Turks had been going on that time. Byron longed for action and went to Greece to take part in the struggle for national independence. There he was seized with fever and died at Missolonghi on April 18, 1824, at the age of 36. The Greeks desired that his remains should be buried in the country for which he had spent his life, but his friends wanted him to be buried in Westminster Abbey. The English authorities refused it, and the poet’s body, already transported from Greece to England, was buried in the family vault near Newstead. His spirit might have flourished better in some world other than the heavy Georgian society in which he grew up. The last episode in Greece showed that he had leadership and courage.