Romanticism

Chapter 7: Lord Byron

“She Walks in Beauty”, “Darkness”, “Inscription On The Monument Of a Newfoundland Dog”

2011 Fall Sehjae Chun Lord George Gordon Byron was as famous in his lifetime for his personality cult as for his poetry. He created the concept of the 'Byronic hero' - a defiant, melancholy young man, brooding on some mysterious, unforgivable event in his past. Byron's influence on European poetry, music, novel, opera, and painting has been immense, although the poet was widely condemned on moral grounds by his contemporaries.

2 Life of Lord Byron (1788-1824)

1788 Born in Aberdeen, Scotland and suffered from “clubfoot”

1805 attended Trinity College, Cambridge

1809-1811 Grand tour to the Mediterranean

1811 returned to England and completed the opening cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

1816 settled at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Swiss

1824 died in Greek War of Independence at the age of 36

3 Lord Byron

Major Works of Poetry

• 1812 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos I & II • 1815 Hebrew Melodies • 1816 Prometheus • 1816 Darkness • 1817 Manfred • 1818 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • 1819–1824 Don Juan • 1821 Cain

4 Lord Byron

• A Poet of a Romantic Paradox

• A Poet of Byronic Hero

• A Poet of Romantic Aspiration

• A Poet of Freedom

5 A Poet of a Romantic Paradox • a leader of the era's poetic revolution, he named Alexander Pope as his master • a worshiper of the ideal, he never lost touch with reality • a deist and freethinker, he retained from his youth a Calvinist sense of original sin • his image and name as the embodiment of Romanticism

A Poet of Byronic Hero • an idealized, but flawed character • Heathcliff from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Rochester from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre

6 A Poet of Romantic Aspiration • a "romantic zest for life and experience • freedom for oppressed people everywhere • "apotheosis of the commonplace" • exuberant, spontaneous, expansive, digressive, concrete, lucid, colloquial--in celebration of "unadorned reality."

A Poet of Freedom • "I was born for opposition," • denounces war, tyranny, and hypocrisy. • "Revolution / Alone can save the earth from hell's pollution" (Don Juan, Canto VIII),

7 “She Walks in Beauty”

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent! 8 “She Walks in Beauty”

• Mrs. Anne Beatrix Wilmot

• the interplay of the darkness and light

• the internal and external beauty

• her physical beauty as well as her interior strengths

• two opposing forces that are at work, darkness and light

• "grace"

• the woman's moral characterization

9 “Darkness”

I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went -and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light; And they did live by watchfires -and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings -the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, And men were gathered round their blazing homes To look once more into each other's face; Happy were those which dwelt within the eye Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch; A fearful hope was all the world contained; Forests were set on fire -but hour by hour They fell and faded -and the crackling trunks Extinguished with a crash -and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light 10 Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them: some lay down And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then again With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless -they were slain for food; And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again; -a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; All earth was but one thought -and that was death, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang Of famine fed upon all entrails -men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devoured, 11 Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famished men at bay, Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answered not with a caress -he died. The crowd was famished by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And they were enemies: they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place Where had been heaped a mass of holy things For an unholy usage: they raked up, And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Each other's aspects -saw, and shrieked, and died - Even of their mutual hideousness they died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow 12 Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, The populous and the powerful was a lump, Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless - A lump of death -a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirred within their silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped They slept on the abyss without a surge - The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The Moon, their mistress, had expired before; The winds were withered in the stagnant air, And the clouds perished! Darkness had no need Of aid from them -She was the Universe!

13 “Darkness”

• 1816 was known as the Year Without a Summer

• the apocalyptic story of the last man on earth

• "at Geneva, when there was a celebrated dark day, on which the fowls went to roost at noon, and the candles were lighted as at midnight" caused by the volcanic ash spewing from the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.

• caused riots, suicides, and religious fervor all over Europe

• in direct contrast with many of the feelings of the age; "Nature never did betray / The heart that loved her".

• God is not in nature or in us; that he is not at all; that “Darkness [or nature] had no need / of aid from them—She was the universe.”

14 “Inscription On The Monument Of a Newfoundland Dog”

NEAR this spot are deposited the Remains of one who possessed Beauty Without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.

This Praise, which would be unmeaning flattery If inscribed over Human Ashes, Is but a just tribute to the Memory of "Boatswain," a Dog Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803, And died at Newstead Abbey Nov. 18, 1808.

When some proud son of man returns to earth, Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth, The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe, And storied urns record who rest below: When all is done, upon the tomb is seen, Not what he was, but what he should have been: 15 But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend, The first to welcome, foremost to defend, Whose honest heart is still his master’s own, Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone, Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth, Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth: While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven, And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.

Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour, Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power, Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust, Degraded mass of animated dust! Thy love is lust, thy friendship is all a cheat, Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit! By nature vile, ennobled but by name, Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame. Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn, Pass on—it honors none you wish to mourn: To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise; I never knew but one,—and here he lies.

16 “Inscription On The Monument Of a Newfoundland Dog”

• Written in honor of his Newfoundland dog, Boatswain • Inscribed on Boatswain's tomb

Relationship between humans and animals • 28: And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Social Background • 1798 Thomas Young. An Essay on Humanity to Animals • 1802 Joseph Ritson An Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food • 1822 Richard Martin's British Anti-cruelty Acts • 1824 Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

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