Lord Byron was a prominent English Romantic poet known for his passionate love, melancholy temperament, and nationalistic fervor. He inherited his title at age 10 and began writing poetry as a teenager. He had scandalous affairs and relationships, including with his half-sister, and married briefly. Byron spent time in Italy and was involved in the Greek War of Independence before his death in 1824. His poetry remains popular and he is remembered as a hero by the Greeks.
George Gordon, Lord Byron, was one of the most important English Romantic poets. She contributed to the genre not only through his poetry but also through the way she led his life, and a seminal character in Romantic fiction, the Byronic hero, is named after him. Lord Byron embodied the Romantic ideals of passionate, if sometimes illicit, romantic love, mystery, a melancholy temperament, and nationalistic fervor. He spent the last year of his life in Greece, where he was fully engaged in the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire.
Born January 22, 1788 in London, England, George Gordon Byron was the son of Captain John Byron and Catherine Gordon. He suffered from clubfoot, a slight deformity of the right foot. Shortly before Byron’s birth, his maternal grandfather had committed suicide, forcing his mother to sell the land and title she inherited to her estate to pay off her debts. His father abandoned his mother, who moved with her infant son to Aberdeen, Scotland, where they lived in near poverty.
Byron inherited his title, along with ancestral estates, at the age of ten, when his uncle died. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, Harrow, London, and Trinity College, Cambridge. Lord Byron began writing poetry as a teenager, completing his first volume at the age of 14. He was however remembered due to the passionate nature of some love poems and a purged volume was published in his place.
He first visited the European continent at the age of 21, spending two years touring the Mediterranean. In Greece she fell in love with Nicolò Giraud, who taught him Italian and cared for him during a prolonged episode of fever. Later, Lord Byron paid for Giraud’s education and set aside a small fortune for him in his will. The poet will maintain a strong emotional attachment to Greece throughout his life.
Upon returning to England in 1811, Lord Byron became a member of the House of Lords. The following year, the publication of the first two cantos of his epic Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was a great literary success. In 1812 he had a brief but scandalous affair with a married woman, Lady Caroline Lamb. He also became very close with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, whom he had just met as a child. Their relationship was also the source of some scandal, as many suspected them of incest.
Lord Byron married Lady Caroline’s cousin Anabella Milbanke in 1815. Their marriage lasted only a year, but she bore a daughter, Augusta Ada. After leaving him, Anabella forbade her husband to have further contact with Ada. Byron left England for good after signing the separation papers in April 1816.
He spent the summer of 1816 at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland with fellow Romantic authors John Polidori, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley. Later came Mary Shelley’s half-sister, Claire Clairmont, who was pregnant with Lord Byron’s child through an affair in England. She financially supported her baby girl, Allegra, but she died at the age of five, a year after being placed in a convent.
Byron lived in Italy, spending time in Venice, Rome, Pisa and Genoa, from 1816 to 1823. He had a romantic relationship with the Countess Guiccioli, who left him with her husband. Lord Byron continued to publish poetry, focusing much of his attention on a second epic work, Don Juan. He also took an interest in the culture of the Armenians he encountered on the Venetian island of San Lazzaro, publishing books on Armenian grammar, an Armenian-English dictionary and translations from Armenian.
The poet moved to Greece to participate in the struggle for independence from the Ottomans in 1823. He invested a large amount of money in Greek troops and planned to command part of a military expedition, but fell ill before it began. On April 19, 1824, Lord Byron died of a fever. His poetry remains among the best loved in the English language, and he is fondly remembered as a hero by the Greeks.
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