Lord george gordon byron biography definition

Elton John. Ralph Fiennes. Daniel Day-Lewis. Maggie Smith. Alan Cumming. Olivia Colman. Exile In April , Byron left England, never to return. Death Byron died on April 19, , at age Lord Byron had an affair with his half-sister Augusta. Lord Byron died at the young age of Absence—that common cure of love. There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off.

In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything. Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey. If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. Watch Next. Byron enjoyed adventure, especially relating to the sea. The first recorded notable example of open water swimming took place on 3 May when Lord Byron swam from Europe to Asia across the Hellespont Strait.

Whilst sailing from Genoa to Cephalonia in , every day at noon, Byron and Trelawny, in calm weather, jumped overboard for a swim without fear of sharks, which were not unknown in those waters. Once, according to Trelawny, they let the geese and ducks loose and followed them and the dogs into the water, each with an arm in the ship Captain's new scarlet waistcoat, to the annoyance of the Captain and the amusement of the crew.

Byron had a great love of animals, most notably for a Newfoundland dog named Boatswain. When the animal contracted rabies , Byron nursed him, albeit unsuccessfully, without any thought or fear of becoming bitten and infected. Although deeply in debt at the time, Byron commissioned an impressive marble funerary monument for Boatswain at Newstead Abbey, larger than his own, and the only building work that he ever carried out on his estate.

In his will, Byron requested that he be buried with him. In a letter sent to Thomas Moore, [ ] Byron admitted to follow a diet "inspired by Pythagoras", who was a famous vegetarian. Byron also kept a tame bear while he was a student at Trinity out of resentment for rules forbidding pet dogs like his beloved Boatswain. There being no mention of bears in their statutes, the college authorities had no legal basis for complaining; Byron even suggested that he would apply for a college fellowship for the bear.

During his lifetime, in addition to numerous cats, dogs, and horses, Byron kept a fox, monkeys, an eagle , a crow , a falcon , peacocks , guinea hens , an Egyptian crane , a badger , geese , a heron , and a goat. I find that my enumeration of the animals in this Circean Palace was defective…I have just met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane.

Byron included an endorsement of vaccine hesitancy in his poem English Bards and Scotch Reviewers , he writes:. Byron refers to 'cow-pox', a reference to Edward Jenner 's smallpox vaccine. He compares these vaccines with tractors a fraudulent medical device , and galvanism , which was understood at the time to reference the reanimation of deceased convicts using electricity.

The deliberate choice to frame vaccines as similar to well-known controversial medical treatments shows Byron's tendency toward vaccine hesitancy in his writings. However, it appears he held different views in private, as he had his protege Robert Rushton inoculated for smallpox. As a boy, Byron's character is described as a "mixture of affectionate sweetness and playfulness, by which it was impossible not to be attached", although he also exhibited "silent rages, moody sullenness and revenge" with a precocious bent for attachment and obsession.

From birth, Byron had a deformity of his right foot. Although it has generally been referred to as a " club foot ", some modern medical authors maintain that it was a consequence of infantile paralysis poliomyelitis , and others that it was a dysplasia , a failure of the bones to form properly. Although he often wore specially-made shoes in an attempt to hide the deformed foot, [ 55 ] he refused to wear any type of brace that might improve the limp.

Scottish novelist John Galt felt his oversensitivity to the "innocent fault in his foot was unmanly and excessive" because the limp was "not greatly conspicuous". He first met Byron on a voyage to Sardinia and did not realise he had any deficiency for several days, and still could not tell at first if the lameness was a temporary injury or not.

At the time Galt met him he was an adult and had worked to develop "a mode of walking across a room by which it was scarcely at all perceptible". Byron's adult height was 5 feet 9 inches 1. He was renowned for his personal beauty, which he enhanced by wearing curl-papers in his hair at night. He attended pugilistic tuition at the Bond Street rooms of former prizefighting champion 'Gentleman' John Jackson , whom Byron called 'the Emperor of Pugilism', and recorded these sparring sessions in his letters and journals.

Byron and other writers, such as his friend Hobhouse , described his eating habits in detail. At the time he entered Cambridge, he went on a strict diet to control his weight. He also exercised a great deal, and at that time wore a great many clothes to cause himself to perspire. For most of his life, he was a vegetarian and often lived for days on dry biscuits and white wine.

Occasionally, he would eat large helpings of meat and desserts, after which he would purge himself. Although he is described by Galt and others as having a predilection for "violent" exercise, Hobhouse suggests that the pain in his deformed foot made physical activity difficult and that his weight problem was the result. Trelawny, who observed Byron's eating habits, noted that he lived on a diet of biscuits and soda water for days at a time and then would eat a "horrid mess of cold potatoes, rice, fish, or greens, deluged in vinegar, and gobble it up like a famished dog".

Byron first took his seat in the House of Lords on 13 March [ ] but left London on 11 June for the Continent. His first speech before the Lords, on 27 February , was loaded with sarcastic references to the "benefits" of automation, which he saw as producing inferior material as well as putting people out of work, and concluded the proposed law was only missing two things to be effective: "Twelve Butchers for a Jury and a Jeffries for a Judge!

Byron's speech was officially recorded and printed in Hansard. Two months later, in conjunction with the other Whigs, Byron made another impassioned speech before the House of Lords in support of Catholic emancipation. Byron wrote prolifically. Subsequent editions were released in 17 volumes, first published a year later, in An extensive collection of his works, including early editions and annotated manuscripts, is held within the John Murray Archive at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Byron's magnum opus , Don Juan , a poem spanning 17 cantos, ranks as one of the most important long poems published in England since John Milton 's Paradise Lost. By this time, he had been a famous poet for seven years, and when he self-published the beginning cantos, they were well received in some quarters. The poem was then released volume by volume through his regular publishing house.

Byron criticised the attitudes displayed by the Irish people towards the Crown , an institution he perceived as oppressing them, and was dismayed by the positive reception George IV received during his visit. In the pamphlet, Byron lambasted Irish unionists and voiced muted support towards nationalistic sentiments in Ireland. Byron was a bitter opponent of Lord Elgin 's removal of the Parthenon marbles from Athens and "reacted with fury" when Elgin's agent gave him a tour of the Parthenon, during which he saw the spaces left by the missing part of the frieze and metopes.

Byron's image fascinated the public, and his wife Annabella coined the term "Byromania" to refer to the commotion surrounding him. Biographies were distorted by the burning of Byron's Memoirs in the offices of his publisher, John Murray , a month after his death and the suppression of details of Byron's bisexuality by subsequent heads of the firm which held the richest Byron archive.

As late as the s, scholar Leslie Marchand was expressly forbidden by the Murray company to reveal details of Byron's same-sex passions. The re-founding of the Byron Society in reflected the fascination that many people had with Byron and his work. Thirty-six Byron Societies function throughout the world, and an International Conference takes place annually.

Byron exercised a marked influence on Continental literature and art, and his reputation as a poet is higher in many European countries than in Britain, [ 82 ] or America, although not as high as in his time, when he was widely thought to be the greatest poet in the world. Over forty operas have been based on his works, in addition to three operas about Byron himself including Virgil Thomson 's Lord Byron.

In April , Byron was featured in a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail to commemorate the Romantic poets on the th anniversary of the birth of William Wordsworth. Ten 1st class stamps were issued of all the major British romantic poets, and each stamp included an extract from one of their most popular and enduring works, with Byron's " She Walks in Beauty " selected for the poet.

The literary heroic figure of the "Byronic hero" has come to epitomize many of Byron's characteristics, and indeed this type of character pervades his own work. The Byronic hero presents an idealised, but flawed character whose attributes include: great talent; great passion; a distaste for society and social institutions; a lack of respect for rank and privilege although possessing both ; being thwarted in love by social constraint or death; rebellion; exile; an unsavoury secret past; arrogance; overconfidence or lack of foresight; and, ultimately, a self-destructive manner.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. English Romantic poet — For other uses, see Byron disambiguation and George Byron disambiguation. The Right Honourable. Portrait of Lord Byron by Thomas Phillips , c.

Anne Isabella Milbanke. John Byron father Catherine Gordon mother. Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal. Early life [ edit ]. Main article: Early life of Lord Byron. Education [ edit ]. Career [ edit ]. Early career [ edit ]. First travels to the East [ edit ]. England — [ edit ]. Life abroad — [ edit ]. Switzerland and the Shelleys [ edit ].

Percy Bysshe Shelley , Claire Clairmont , Italy [ edit ]. Ottoman Greece [ edit ]. Further information: Greek War of Independence. Death [ edit ]. Post mortem [ edit ]. Personal life [ edit ]. Relationships and scandals [ edit ]. Lady Caroline Lamb. Jane Elizabeth Scott "Lady Oxford". Anne Isabella Milbanke in by Charles Hayter.

Teresa, Contessa Guiccioli. Sexuality [ edit ]. Children [ edit ]. Elizabeth Medora Leigh — Ada Lovelace — Clara Allegra Byron — Scotland [ edit ]. Sea and swimming [ edit ]. Fondness for animals [ edit ]. Vaccine skepticism [ edit ]. Health and appearance [ edit ]. Character and psyche [ edit ]. Deformed foot [ edit ]. Physical appearance [ edit ].

Political career [ edit ]. Poetic works [ edit ]. Don Juan [ edit ]. Main article: Don Juan poem. Irish Avatar [ edit ]. Main article: Irish Avatar. Parthenon marbles [ edit ]. Main article: Elgin Marbles. Legacy and influence [ edit ]. Main article: Byron's Memoirs. Byronic hero [ edit ]. In popular culture [ edit ]. Main article: Lord Byron in popular culture.

See also: Cultural legacy of Mazeppa. Bibliography [ edit ]. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. See also: Category:Works by Lord Byron. Index of Titles Index of First Lines. Major works [ edit ].

Selected shorter lyric poems [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed. Oxford University Press. ISBN Retrieved 8 February Subscription or UK public library membership required. The British Library. Archived from the original on 15 July Retrieved 17 October Robert Morrison.

Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 30 December Retrieved 25 May Retrieved 5 November The New York Times. ISSN American Scientist. To know the life of Byron and not be moved to profoundest pity marks one as alien to his kind. And did there ever tread the earth a man more sensitive than Byron? Music made him tremble and weep, and in the presence of kindness he was powerless.

He lived life to its fullest, and paid the penalty with shortened years. He expressed himself without reserve—being emancipated from superstition and precedent. And the man who is not dominated by the fetish of custom is marked for contumely by the many. If you do not know this you are ignorant of life. So imagine this handsome, headstrong, restless young man, in whose lexicon there was no such word as prudence, with time and money at his command, defying the state, society and religion, and listen to the anathemas that fill the air at mention of his name.

That a world full of such men would not be at all desirable is stern truth; but that one such man lived is a cause for congratulation. His life holds for us both warning and example. Beneath the strain of the stuff and the onward swirl of his verse we see that this man stood for truth and justice as against hypocrisy and oppression. Folly and freedom are better far than smugness and persecution.

Byron stood for the rights of the individual, for the right of free speech and free thought: and he stood for political and physical freedom, long before abolition societies became popular. He sided with the people; his heart went out to the oppressed; and all of his fruitless gropings and stumblings were a reaching out for tenderness and truth, for life and love—for the Ideal.

Happiness, in a foreign country, for a woman who has exchanged one love for another is outside the pale of possibilities. Love is much — but love is not all. The change means death. Back to England went Mad Jack Byron, broken-hearted, bearing in his arms the baby girl. Kind kinsmen, ready to forgive, cared for the child. He sought sympathy among several discreet dames, and in two years we find him safely and legally married to Catherine Gordon: she was Scotch, and heiress to twenty-five thousand pounds.

Most of this fortune went into a rat-hole to help pay the debts of the Mad Jack. The doctor who sought to assist George Gordon Byron into the world dislocated the bones of his left foot in the operation. Forsooth, this baby would not be born as others —- he selected a way of his own and paid the penalty. Such a pedigree he had! No wonder the youth once wrote to Augusta, his half-sister, expressing a covetous appreciation of her parentage, even with its bar sinister.

In passing, it is well to note the sunshine of this love of brother and sister, which continued during life — confidential, earnest, tender, frank. In their best moods they were both lofty souls, and their mutuality was cemented in a contempt for the man who was their sire. Mad Jack followed his regiment here and there, dodging his creditors, and finally in Seventeen Hundred Ninety-one induced his wife to borrow a hundred pounds for him, with which he started to Paris intent on retrieving fortune with pasteboard.

He died on the way, and the money was used to bury him. The lame boy was then three years old, but a few dark memories, no doubt retouched by hearsay, were retained by him of Mad Jack, who in his most sober moments never guessed that he would be known to the ages as the father of the greatest poet of his time. Mad Jack was neither literary nor psychic.

The widowed mother remained at Aberdeen with her boy, living on the hundred and fifty pounds a year that had been settled on her in a way that she could not squander the principal—all the rest had gone. The mother used to reprove him by throwing things at him, and by chasing him with the tongs.

Lord george gordon byron biography definition

At other times she diverted herself by imitating his limp. And yet again she would smother him with caresses, beseech his pardon for abusing him, and praise the beauty of his matchless eyes. Children are usually better judges of grown-ups than grown-ups are of children. He grew moody, secretive, wilful. The child longed for tenderness and love, and being denied these, was already taking on that proud and haughty temper which was to serve as a mask to hide the tenderness of his nature.

We are told that seven brothers Byron fought at Edgehill, but when we get down to the time of Mad Jack there was danger of the name being snuffed out entirely. Nature is not anxious to perpetuate the idle and dissipated. His great-uncle, William, Lord Byron of Rochdale and Newstead Abbey, had died, and the big-eyed, lame boy was the nearest heir—in fact, the only living male who bore the family-name.

Even at this time he had given promise of the quality of his nature, by his firm affection for Mary Duff, his cousin. All the intensity of his childish nature was centered in this young woman, several years his senior. To call it a passion would be too much, but this child, denied of love at home, clung to Mary Duff, to whom he went in confession with all his childish tales of woe.

And all this wealth of love was met with jeers and loud laughter, save by Mary Duff. The vibrating sensitiveness of such a child, with such a mother, must have caused a misery we can only guess. When money came, Mrs. To this effect wooden clamps were placed on the foot and screwed down by thumbscrews, causing a torture that would have been unbearable to many.

No benefit was experienced from the treatment, although it was continued by another physician at London soon after. In fact, as he grew to manhood, it was nothing more than a stiffness that would never have been noticed in a drawing-room. We have this on the testimony of the Countess Guiccioli, Lady Blessington and others. Sir Walter Scott was lame, too, but whoever heard of his discussing it, either by word of mouth or in print?

He could not be driven nor forced, and pedagogics a hundred years ago, it seemed, was largely a science of coercion. British Broadcasting Corporation Home. Lord Byron, c. His father died when he was three, with the result that he inherited his title from his great uncle in In , he left for a two-year tour of a number of Mediterranean countries.

He returned to England in , and in the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' were published. Byron became famous overnight.