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George Gordon Byron

George Gordon Byron. His life as his greatest work of art.

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George Gordon Byron

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  1. George Gordon Byron His life as his greatest work of art

  2. “I am so changeable, being everything by turns and nothing long- I am such a strange mélange of good and evil, that it would be difficult to describe me. There are but two sentiments to which I am constant – a strong love of liberty and a detestation of cant.”

  3. 1788-1824 • Created his own fame in Europe; in literature, paintings, music • Model of Romanticism: Byronic hero • Arch-rebel, isolated and mysterious • An erotic and often fatal attraction • Almost superhuman in his passion • Sense of guilt leading to his doom

  4. Descendant of aristocrats (hence the title ‘lord’) • A family history full of violence and squandering of fortunes • Raised by strong Calvinist mother (who punished him) • And a nurse (who seduced him)

  5. Defect on his foot; compensation through • Fencing, horse riding and swimming • Studied at Cambridge – first homosexual experience • Poetry and • An expensive life of pleasure • Educational tour through Portugal, Spain and Greece

  6. Famous as a poet, in England • Not only for his poetry, but also for his • Beauty • But he had to go on a diet, because he was inclined to fatness • But being slim, he had many women

  7. To escape from a certain woman, he married a naïve and virtuous one. • So he had an incestuous affair with his half-sister, after having impregnated his wife • So he had to go. Quite a scandal! • He thought England was a country of hypocrites, so he left England for good in 1816

  8. In Geneva, he joined the Shelleys(Percy Bysse en Mary) • He went to Italy, where he settled down with a Countess who was, in fact, married • Always big friends with Shelley, under whose influence he wrote a masterwork • Called Don Juan, a satire.

  9. Shelley drowned. • Byron got tired of his life, bored with love • Went, sought and found a soldier’s death: • Byron Brigade in Greece; help againstTurkey • Became and still is a Greek hero • Last affair: homosexual relationship which left him bitter and full of self-disgust • 1824; death of fever, in the war.

  10. Don Juan • Epic satire; based on the legend Don Juan • 17 cantos 16000 lines; unfinished • Criticized for its moral content; yet also immensely popular

  11. What does Byron do in the first 4 stanzas? • What happens in stanza 5? • What is the keyword of stanza 6? • What does Byron do in stanza 7? • What is the atmosphere in stanza 16?

  12. Percy Bysse Shelley • A life similar to Byron’s; an atheist, the eloping with women, the abandonments, the scandalist • Married Mary Shelley, daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft. • Left England in 1818; to Italy • Death 1822; buried in Rome

  13. “Shelley the atheist is dead. Now he knows whether there is a Hell or not” (English obituary)

  14. Ideology: there is redemption in life and by love and imagination. This is no certainty, but only hope. Let not despair gain its deadly victory over us.

  15. Ozymandias • Subject: the once largest statue in Egypt • A pharao, Rameses II • “I am Ozymandias, king of kings. If anyone wishes to know what I am and where I lie, let him surpass me in any of my deeds”.

  16. Ancient ruins declare the triumph of time and nature over human tyranny. • Hubris • The power of art

  17. I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frownAnd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold commandTell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these words appear:`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away".

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