Lord Byron: Lord Loser

The question to which we are asked to respond is whether one can separate the characteristically flamboyant “Byronic” lifestyle from Byron’s poetry—or whether the two are inextricable.  In other words, is it really Lord Byron’s poetry for which he is appreciated by the literary elite; or, is it the fact that he was such a dissolute loser that brings the accolades down upon his memory?

… The caveat being that his poetry is appreciated.

Byron’s poetry included Manfred (1816), at least parts of which were plagiarized.  Regarding the parts of the poem which seem to borrow heavily from Goethe’s Faust, the editors of the Norton Anthology preface to Manfred claim that “Byron denied that he had ever heard of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, and because he knew no German he had not read Goethe’s Faust, of which part I had been published in 1808.”  The editors provide further elucidation upon this “Byronic” claim by relating the story of one Matthew Lewis who visited Byron two years before Manfred was published.  During that visit, the young Mr. Lewis, a friend also of Percy Bysshe Shelley, read parts of Faust aloud to Lord Byron, “translating as he went.”  Byron then “worked memories of this oral translation into his own drama in a way (the editor’s claim) that evoked Goethe’s admiration.” (Greenblatt, 635)  Perhaps Goethe’s admiration stemmed from the result that more attention was drawn to his own work than was gained by Byron’s.  Regardless, if an American Public University student circa 2012 were to compose an essay employing Byron’s technique, he or she would be exposed to the university’s stated “consequences for academic dishonesty.” (Student Handbook)

His Byronic heroes included the serial fornicator, Don Juan.  A work deemed so “unacceptably immoral” by his literary advisors that one of them only agreed to publishing its first two installments “without identifying Byron as the author or himself as the publisher.” (Greenblatt, 669).  The noted Thomas Carlyle’s counsel, concerning Byron’s poetry was to “close thy Byron; open thy Goethe.” (Greenblatt, 607).

Byron was fond of choir boys (Lecture notes, slide 27), incestuous relationships (Greenblatt, 610), and idleness (Greenblatt, 609).  He led a generally sorry existence characterized by sexual promiscuity, wasteful spending, avoidance of military service, and public scandal.

One of account of his activity in the House of Lords—publicly supporting the cause of the Nottingham weavers “who had resorted to smashing the newly invented textile machines that had thrown them out of work” (Greenblatt, 609)—suggests that, had Byron lived in the United States circa 2011, he would have fit in well with the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

George Gordon, Lord Byron loathed the military service of his own country and was derelict in his duties pertaining to national defense as a member of the House of Lords by touring Europe while England’s armies under the Duke of Wellington led the northern European coalition against the resurgent French emperor, Napoleon.  While England’s finest bled on the battlefields of Waterloo, Byron left on an extended jaunt around the continent punctuated by “a sequence of liaisons with ladies of fashion.” (Greenblatt, 609)  Byron’s scandalous lifestyle finally induced England to banish the young loser from the kingdom in 1816. (Greenblatt, 610)

Byron epitomized the “jet set” of his day.  He and his literary brethren were the Hollywood stars of their time.  Their published works were to a segment of the British public what Hollywood movies are to certain parts of the American public in our day and time.  Byron’s renown was fed by the scandals of his personal life as a member of the upper house of Parliament, his travels abroad, his personal intervention on the side of the Greeks in their quest to free themselves from the clutches of the Ottoman Empire, and the fact that he, Kennedy-like, died so young.  But Byronism, and the “Byronic” lifestyle, is synonymous for being a loser.  Therefore, the only plausible answer to the question of whether it is possible to treat Byron’s misspent life as a thing wholly unrelated to the things which he wrote is that, while doing so may make for an interesting academic exercise, it would only demonstrate in a backhanded way that such a thing is not possible.  No one in the real world would have ever wasted five minutes with anything Byron wrote apart from some level of knowledge about his life.  His life and his poetry are one.  There was no virtue in the former; there can be none in the latter.  George Gordon, Lord Byron was a colossal loser and his poetry survives because of that and that alone.

PS—

One really cannot separate the lives of any of these poets from their works and still be studying their works.

Works Cited.

Greenblatt, Stephen and M.H. Abrams.  Eds.   The Norton Anthology to English Literature.  8^th Ed., Vol. 2.  New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.

Student Handbook.  American Public University.  Accessed Jan. 16, 2012.  < http://www.apus.edu/
student-handbook/writing-standards/index.htm#Academic_Dishonesty >.