Lord Byron
Mad, bad and dangerous to know
He was a giant of English Romanticism, a supremely gifted poet and satirist, and a national hero in Greece. However, in the popular imagination, Lord Byron is famous for being famous – a 19th century celebrity. And in the 19th century, as it is today, the only thing better than watching the rise of a celebrity is watching the fall. So it was with Byron.
George Gordon Noel Byron was born in 1788 into a family of rapidly crumbling nobility. His early years were far removed from the hard-living, hard-loving lifestyle with which he has become synonymous. A lame foot, the lack of any father figure, and the contempt of his aristocratic family for his mother all made the young Byron a meek and overly sensitive boy.
After the death of his granduncle in 1798, Byron inherited his title and estate, becoming the 6thBaron Byron at the tender age of 10. After graduating from Harrow, he went up to Trinity College in 1805.
Byron had already been writing for several years by the time he arrived at Cambridge, often encouraged by his close friend Elizabeth Pigot. However, he was not terribly impressed with Cambridge, and when writing to Elizabeth, described the place as a 'villainous chaos of din and drunkenness'.
He had not planned to return to Cambridge after the long vacation, but discovered that after the publication of his first poems (Hours of Idleness, 1807), he had become something of a celebrity and stayed on for a further year, when he was able to develop the tastes that he so abhorred in his first.
After leaving Cambridge, Byron embarked upon a 2-year voyage to the Mediterranean. This trip provided him with the inspiration for the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. After their publication in 1812, Byron became the classic overnight success story, saying “I awoke one morning and found myself famous.”
Byron capitalised on his new-found fame. His list of paramours was lengthy and legendary. His affairs with Lady Caroline Lamb and Lady Oxford shocked members of London society, but his incestuous relationship with his half-sister Augusta shook them to their collective core. Incest became a prominent theme in Byron’s writing, featured in works such as The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair and Lara.
In 1815, Byron decided it was time to settle down, and married Anna Milbanke. However, as with so many of today’s celebrity marriages, the union quickly unravelled, and she left him within a year. After the divorce, Byron once again found himself an societal outcast.
Byron had had enough of uptight London, and they had had enough of him. Whispers of incest and homosexuality, along with mounting debts, caused Byron to leave his homeland, never to return. In a letter to his publisher John Murray, he wrote, "I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed, could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to your soil."
Free from the constraints of London society, Byron embarked on a series of adventures around Europe. In Switzerland, he spent time with Percy Bysshe Shelley, immersed himself in the poetry of fellow Cantabrigian Wordsworth, and embarked upon a short-lived affair with Shelley’s sister-in-law. He soon left Switzerland for Italy, settling in Venice, where he proudly claimed to have bedded different women for 200 consecutive evenings.
Byron in Venice was Byron at his most creative – the fourth canto of Childe Harolde, the satiric Beppo and his (ultimately unfinished) comic masterpiece Don Juan all came out of his time spent in Italy.
Byron left Italy for Greece in 1823, after accepting the request for support from representatives of the movement for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire. He spent much of his time in Greece with Alexandros Mavrokordatos, a Greek politician with military power. Byron also developed a crush on Mavrokodatos’ young page, but his feelings were unrequited.
While planning an attack on the Turkish-held fortress of Lepanto in early 1824, Byron fell ill, and ultimately succumbed to malarial fever on 19 April.
Memorial services for Byron were held all over Greece.The Greeks wished to bury him in Athens, but according to legend, only his heart stayed in the country. Byron's body was returned to England but refused by the deans of both Westminister and St Paul's, due to his “questionable morality”. Finally, Byron's coffin was placed in the family vault at Hucknall Torkard, near Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire.
Byron lives on not only through his work, but through his archetype of the Byronic hero - brooding, mysterious, self-destructive – featured in many of his works. The Byronic hero continues to be an irresistible figure: popular examples include James Dean, Scarlett O’Hara and Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain, who ended his suicide note with a very Byronesque quote: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”
Downing College alumnus and illustrator Quentin Blake drew a new image of Byron as part of his Cambridge 800: An Informal Panorama. Click here to see the rest of the images.
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