Byron

Byron by John Morley (1867)

The biography focuses on the poet's life and work, exploring his relationships with women, his struggles with mental health, and his role in shaping Romanticism. It examines his early years, his time at Cambridge, and his travels to Europe. The book also delves into his poetry, analyzing its themes, style, and impact on literature.

By John Morley · First published 1867 · Genre: Biography, Literary Criticism, Romanticism · 14,081 words

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It is one of the singular facts in the history of literature, that the most rootedly conservative country in Europe should have produced the poet of the Revolution. Nowhere is the antipathy to principles and ideas so profound, nor the addiction to moderate compromise so inveterate, nor the reluctance to advance away from the past so unconquerable, as in England; and nowhere in England is there so settled an indisposition to regard any thought or sentiment except in the light of an existing social order, nor so firmly passive a hostility to generous aspirations, as in the aristocracy. Yet it was precisely an English aristocrat who became the favourite poet of all the most high-minded conspirators and socialists of continental Europe for half a century; of the best of those, that is to say, who have borne the most unsparing testimony against the present ordering of society, and against the theological and moral conceptions which have guided and maintained it. The rank and file of the army has been equally inspired by the same fiery and rebellious strains against the order of God and the order of man. 'The day will come,' wrote Mazzini, thirty years ago, 'when Democracy will remember all that it owes to Byron. England, too, will, I hope, one day remember the mission -- so entirely English yet hitherto overlooked by her -- which Byron fulfilled on the Continent; the European role given by him to English literature, and the appreciation and sympathy for England which he awakened amongst us. Before he came, all that was known of English literature was the French translation of Shakespeare, and the anathema hurled by Voltaire against the "drunken savage. " It is since Byron that we Continentalists have learned to study Shakespeare and other English writers. From him dates the sympathy of all the true-hearted amongst us for this land of liberty, whose true vocation he so worthily represented among the oppressed. He led the genius of Britain on a pilgrimage throughout all Europe. '[1]

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Biography · Poetry · Romanticism · Literary Criticism · Historical Figure · English Literature · 19th Century · Intellectual History · Philosophy · Culture · Society · Politics

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