Dustin Messex
ENGL 3120A
Dr. Brown
29 April 2009

The Byronic Hero

     Lord Byron is one of the world’s best known Romantic poets today.  Indeed, he also was rather popular during his own time.  High society, love affairs, scandals, and travelling the globe—the man lived a lifestyle comparable to that of a modern day rock-star.  George Gordon, aka Lord Byron, was involved politically in England as a member of the House of Lords and travelled around the Mediterranean as well as to the East.  He was known to be intelligent, passionate, introspective, rebellious, and at times, arrogant.  These personal traits of Lord Byron himself seem to be reflected upon the characters of his narratives as well, and unite to create The Byronic Hero.  Many of the characters in Lord Byron’s works embody the attitudes and emotions carried by Byron himself.

     Qualities of the Byronic Hero are similar to that of Satan in John Milton’s Paradise Lost.   In describing the character of Satan, Milton writes:

he above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent [ 590 ]
Stood like a Towr; his form had yet not lost
All her Original brightness, nor appear'd
Less then Arch Angel ruind, and th' excess
Of Glory obscur'd: As when the Sun new ris'n
Looks through the Horizontal misty Air [ 595 ]
Shorn of his Beams, or from behind the Moon
In dim Eclips disastrous twilight sheds
On half the Nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes Monarchs. Dark'n'd so, yet shon
Above them all th' Arch Angel: but his face [ 600 ]
Deep scars of Thunder had intrencht, and care
Sat on his faded cheek, but under Browes
Of dauntless courage, and considerate Pride
Waiting revenge: cruel his eye, but cast
Signs of remorse and passion to behold [ 605 ]
The fellows of his crime, the followers rather
(Far other once beheld in bliss) condemn'd
For ever now to have thir lot in pain

     This romanticized representation of Satan provides us with a model for The Byronic Hero as well.  Milton, and later Byron, present us with a character that is nearly perfect, but yet possess some troubling past that allows them to only continue to live their lives in alienation and agony.  In A Defense of Poetry by Percy Shelley, Shelley writes, “Nothing can exceed the energy and magnificence of the character of Satan as expressed in Paradise Lost. It is a mistake to suppose that he could ever have been intended for the popular personification of evil.”  By romanticizing the troubled, it is not a glorification of evil characters, but instead an insight into the minds of those who either are, or feel damned, exiled, and alienated.  This is the trait that is shared with Milton’s Satan and Byron’s characters in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Manfred, and Don Juan, as well as many other works from Lord Byron.  

     Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was the work that catapulted Lord Byron into the literary spotlight.  In Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II With His Letters and Journals by Thomas Moore, Moore quotes Byron as having said, “I awoke one morning and found myself famous.” This statement by Byron gives a sense of modesty about his poetry, as if he wasn’t really looking for his chance in the spotlight, but instead it simply found him.  This piece is thought to be autobiographical of George Gordon in part, and is also the piece that introduced The Byronic Hero.  Childe Harold is a man who feels damned by his deeds in “Sin’s long labyrinth” (Byron 618).  The narrator gives us a sense of this damnation and the inability to forgive Childe Harold’s unspecified crimes when he says, “florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime” (Byron 618).  No matter what exactly it is that Harold has done, we are given the sense that it is unforgivable.  This unforgivable crime, though unknown, puts Lord Byron’s character in almost the same position as Milton’s Satan.  Satan is unable to return to heaven, and Childe Harold has forever lost his loved one.  With their unpardonable crime, the only course of action that it seems they are able to take is to wander the world in exile and reflect upon their actions.  This is a burden which tortures both Harold and Satan.

     Defending Milton’s romantic presentation of Satan, Percy Shelley comments on the logic behind the predicament of the unforgivable, stating, “Milton’s Devil as a moral being is as far superior to his God, as one who perseveres in some purpose which he has conceived to be excellent in spite of adversity and torture is to one who in the cold security of undoubted triumph inflicts the most horrible revenge upon his enemy, not from any mistaken notion of inducing him to repent of a perseverance in enmity, but with the alleged design of exasperating him to deserve new torments” (Shelley). In the beginning of Stanza 113 Childe Harold says, “I have not loved the world, nor the world me;” and he repeats this again in the following stanza (Byron 634).  Satan’s torturing adversary is God, as is Childe Harold’s.  Harold continues, “I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow’d / To its idolatries a patient knee, -- / Nor coin’d my cheek to smiles,--nor cried aloud / In worship of an echo; in the crowd / They could not deem me one of such;  I stood / Among them, but not of them;” (Byron 634).  The “echo” that he refuses to worship is God, and the crowd of which he stood by, but was not a part of, is the Church.  This is a key element of the Byronic Hero—the refusal to bow down to, or believe that there is something superior to himself.  This refusal is a personal choice and it is what hinders the prospect of salvation for the characters.  In this sense, the pain of both Harold and Satan’s exile comes from this refusal and proves to be self-destructive.  

     The theme of exile and the inability to find redemption also runs through Lord Byron’s Manfred.  Manfred is a strong, intelligent, brave, and cynical character who refuses to bow to authority and chooses to live in isolation.  The Abbot comments on Manfred’s potential saying, “This should have been a noble creature: he / Hath all the energy which would have made / A goodly frame of glorious elements” (Byron 662).  The Abbot realizes that Manfred’s narcissism and chosen isolation from humanity is bad for both Manfred and humanity, for had Manfred chosen a different path much good could have come from it.  Yet again, because of his unspoken crime, all Manfred seeks out is forgetfulness and oblivion. He is unable to recover his lost Astarte and is tormented by it.  He chooses to submit to no higher authority and this is expressed through his conversations with the Abbot as well as with The Seven Spirits, which are symbolic of the powers of antiquity. The Abbot is symbolic of Christianity in Manfred –The Seven Spirits are symbolic of Pantheism.  Manfred rejects both Pantheism and Christianity, and instead only wants to be left alone, somewhere outside of existence.  Manfred controls the powers of antiquity, but rejects when he asks for self-oblivion and the Spirits reply, “It is not in our essence, in our skill;” (Byron 640).  This rejection is powerfully reiterated in the closing to Manfred when Manfred says, “Give me thy hand” to the Abbot, to which the Abbot says, “Cold—cold—even to the heart-- / but yet one prayer—alas! how fares it with thee?—" and Manfred replies, “Old man! ‘tis not so difficult to die” (Byron 668).  Upon his death, Manfred wants to be close to someone, hence the request for the Abbot’s hand, yet he does not want to receive the blessings of a God which he does not wish to bow to.  

     Cynical, intelligent, narcissistic, alienated, rebellious, and sophisticated—these are the traits of The Byronic Hero, and they are indeed a reflection of Byron himself.  Lord Byron’s literary contributions tell the story of a man who looks on at a broken world with a troubling past and refuses to be a part of any of it.  Instead, like Milton’s Satan, he wishes to part from it and live on in isolation.  This desire to be a part from all the rest is what tortures these characters, and it is the avenue to their self-destruction.  
 
Works Cited

Byron, Lord. "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." The Norton Anthology of English   Literature, Volume D The Romantic Period. New York: Norton, 2005. 617-35.

Byron, Lord. "Manfred." The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume D The Romantic Period. New York: Norton, 2005. 636-69.

Milton, John. "Milton: Paradise Lost - Book 1." Dartmouth College. 25 Apr. 2009 <http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/book_1/index.shtml>.

Moore, Thomas. "Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II With His Letters and Journals." Main Page - Gutenberg. 25 Apr. 2009 <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16570/16570-8.txt>.

Shelley, Percy B. "A Defence of Poetry. Percy Bysshe Shelley. 1909-14. English Essays: Sidney to Macaulay. The Harvard Classics." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Encyclopedia, Dictionary, Thesaurus and hundreds more. 25 Apr. 2009 <http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html>.