George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) is rightfully considered a great English poet. His work is inextricably linked with the era of romanticism. It arose in Western Europe at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. This new direction in art was a consequence of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment associated with it.
Progressive thinking people were dissatisfied with the results of the revolution. In addition, the political reaction intensified. As a result, the romantics were divided into two camps. Some called on European society to return to patriarchal life, to medieval traditions and refuse to solve pressing problems. Others called for continuing the work of the French Revolution and implementing the ideas of freedom, equality and fraternity.
Byron joined the second camp. He sharply denounced the colonial policy of the British government, opposed the suppression of freedoms and the adoption of cruel anti-people laws. This caused him dissatisfaction ruling circles. A hostile campaign began against the poet in 1816, and he was forced to leave England forever. In a foreign land, the exile actively participated in the struggle of the Italian Carbonari and Greek rebels for independence.
Pushkin considered the rebel poet a genius. The Englishman enjoyed great popularity among the Decembrists. The Russian critic Belinsky did not ignore him either. He spoke of Byron as a great poet who made a huge contribution to world literature.
Biography
Childhood and youth
Our hero was born on January 22, 1788 in London. Both on the side of his father, John Byron, and on the side of his mother, Catherine Gordon, the boy came from the highest English and Scottish aristocracy. However, his childhood was spent in conditions of extreme poverty.
The child's father, being a guards officer, lived extremely extravagantly. Behind short term he squandered two large fortunes - his first wife and his second, who was the boy’s mother. From his first marriage, John had a daughter, Augusta. She was raised by her grandmother, and her friendship with her half-brother began only in 1804.
Soon after the boy was born, the parents separated. The father went to France, where he died. And the child’s early childhood was spent in Scotland in the city of Aberdeen. There he entered the Grammar School. When the boy graduated from 3rd grade, a message arrived from England. It said that a great-uncle had died. Our hero inherited the title of lord and the family estate of Newstead Abbey, located in Nottingham County.
Both the estate and the castle were in a state of disrepair, and there was no money for their restoration. Therefore, the boy’s mother rented out Newstead Abbey, and she and her son settled nearby in Southwell.
The childhood and adolescence of the great English poet were darkened not only by poverty. The fact was that the boy was lame from birth. Doctors came up with devices for his lameness, but it did not go away. The mother, who had an unbalanced character, in the heat of quarrels, reproached her son for his physical handicap. This brought the young man severe moral suffering.
In 1801, George entered a boarding school for children from noble families in Harrow. This school trained future politicians and diplomats. Robert Peel (1788-1850), the future Minister of the Interior and then Prime Minister of England, studied in the same class with Byron.
In 1803, at the age of 15, our hero fell in love with Mary Chaworth during the holidays. She was 2 years older, and the young people spent a lot of time together. But the friendship did not end with the wedding, but love tormented the poet’s romantic soul for many years.
In 1805, the young man entered Cambridge University. This is a time of fun, pleasure and mischief. In addition, the young man plays sports intensively. He enjoys swimming, boxing, horse riding, and fencing. He subsequently became one of the best swimmers in England. The future poet also developed a passion for reading. Soon everyone noticed that the young man had a phenomenal memory, as he was able to memorize pages of text.
The young man published his first collection of poems in 1806, while a student. He called it "Flying Sketches". The second collection appeared in 1807 and was titled “Poems on Various Occasions.” In the same year, the third collection of poems, “Leisure Hours,” was published.
In 1808, an anonymous review appeared in the Edinburgh Review magazine, in which an unknown reviewer mercilessly ridiculed the work of the young poet. He bluntly wrote that the young man did not speak the literary language and that it was better for him to learn poetry rather than write his own clumsy works. In response to this, George published the poem "The British Bards" in 1809. The product immediately sold out. It went through 4 editions.
At the end of 1809, our hero set off on a 2-year journey. At this time he finished the poem "In the Footsteps of Horace" and wrote travel notes in verse. This journey of 1809-1811 was of great importance for the development of the poetic gift and creativity of the great poet. The journey began in Portugal, then the young man visited Spain, the island of Malta, Greece, Albania, went to Constantinople and returned to Greece. At the end of the summer of 1811, the traveler returned to England, learned about his mother’s serious illness, but did not find her alive.
Charles Gordon retired to Newstead and began working on the poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. But when the poem was ready, editor Murray demanded that stanzas of a political nature be excluded from it. But the poet refused to change anything.
Later years of life
Soon our hero took his inherited seat in the House of Lords. At this time, the Luddite movement spread widely in England. It was expressed in the protest of weavers against weaving machines. Automation manual labor left many of them without work. And for those who remained working, their wages fell sharply. Therefore, people destroyed the machines, seeing them as the root of evil.
The government prepared a law that would impose the death penalty for destroying cars. George Gordon Byron spoke in Parliament, categorically protesting against this law. He stated that the state should protect the interests of the majority of citizens, and not a handful of monopolists. But, despite the protests, the law was passed in February 1812.
After this, real terror against weavers began in the country. They were sentenced to death by hanging, given long prison terms and exiled. The poet did not stand aside and published an angry ode denouncing the authors of the cruel law.
Since 1813, our hero has been creating a whole series of romantic poems. These are "The Giaour" (1813), "The Bride of Abydos" (1813), "The Corsair" (1814), "Lara" (1814), "The Siege of Corinth" (1816). In the literature they are designated as “eastern”.
In January 1815, Charles Gordon tied the knot with Annabelle Milbank. She came from a patriarchal aristocratic family. The wife was against her husband's social activities, which clearly contradicted the main line of the government. As a result of this, quarrels arose in the family.
In December 1815, the couple had a daughter, Ada Augusta. And in January 1816, the wife left her husband without even explaining the reason for the breakup. The wife's parents immediately initiated the divorce proceedings. At the same time, our hero wrote a number of works about Napoleon. In them, he expressed the opinion that England, waging a war against France, brought a lot of grief to its people.
Divorce and incorrect political views became the reason for persecution of the poet. The newspapers made the scandal so big that George Gordon couldn't even go outside. On April 26, 1816, he left his homeland forever. His last poem written in England was “Stanzas to Augusta” - his half-sister, who always supported her brother and supported his creative spirit.
At first, our hero wanted to live in France, and then in Italy. But the French authorities only allowed them to travel around the country without stopping in cities. Therefore, Byron went to Switzerland and settled on the shores of Lake Geneva. This is Villa Diodati. It was in Switzerland that he met the poet Shelley, and their friendship began.
The Swiss period lasted from May to October 1816. During this time, the poems “Dream”, “Darkness”, “The Prisoner of Chillon” were written. The poet also began to create the poem "Manfred" and wrote the 3rd song of "Childe Harold". Then our hero went to Venice, where he met Countess Guiccioli and fell in love with her. The woman reciprocated, but she was married and soon left with her husband for Ravenna.
In 1819, the poet moved to Ravenna following his beloved. Here he took an active part in the Carbonari movement. In 1821, the Carbonari began to prepare for an uprising. But it never began due to the betrayal of some members of the organization.
Also in 1821, Charles Gordon moved to Pisa, where he began to live with the already divorced Countess Guiccioli. Shelley also lived in the same city, but the poor man drowned in the fall of 1822. From 1821 to 1823, Byron wrote “Marino Faliero”, “The Two Foscari”, “Sardanapalus”, “Cain”, “Heaven and Earth”, “Werner”, and also began the drama “The Transformed Freak”. It remained unfinished. From 1818 to 1823 the poet wrote his famous Don Juan. But this greatest creation also remained unfinished.
Byron interrupted his work to take part in the struggle of the Greek people for their independence. In the fall of 1822, George Gordon and his beloved moved to Genoa, and in December 1823 he left for Missolonghi.
But in Greece, as in Italy among the Carbonari, there was no unity in the ranks of the rebels. Our hero spent a lot of effort trying to unite the rebels. He started a big organizational work to create a rebel army. The poet’s life was very stressful, and then he caught a cold. On the day of his 36th birthday, he wrote the poem “Today I turned 36 years old” and was very worried about the illness of his daughter Ada.
However, a letter soon arrived. It reported that the daughter had recovered. To celebrate, George Gordon Byron mounted his horse and went for a ride. But as luck would have it, a heavy downpour began. For the poet with a cold, it became fatal. On April 19, 1824, the man died in the prime of his life. Thus ended the life of one of the greatest poets of the first quarter of the 19th century, who today is rightfully considered the pride of England.
George Noel Gordon Byron was born on January 22, 1788 in London. The boy was immediately given a double surname. On his father's side he became Byron. By mother - Gordon.
The Byrons' ancestry dates back to the Normans, who settled in England during the time of William the Conqueror and received lands in the county of Nottingham. In 1643, King Charles I Stuart gave Sir John Byron (c. 1526-1600) the title of Lord. The poet's grandfather, also John Byron (1723-1786), rose to the rank of vice admiral and was famous for his unluckiness. He was nicknamed Stormy Jack because as soon as his crew set sail, a storm immediately broke out. In 1764, on the ship "Dauphin" Byron was sent on a voyage around the world, but during this campaign he managed to discover only the Disappointment Islands, although there were still many unexplored archipelagos around - they were simply not noticed. In the only naval battle that he fought as a naval commander, Byron suffered a crushing defeat. After this, he was not trusted with command of the fleet.
Jack Bad Weather's eldest son, John Byron (1756-1791), graduated from the French Military Academy, joined the Guards, and participated in the American wars almost as a child. There, for his bravery, he received the nickname Mad John. Returning to London, Byron seduced the wealthy Baroness Amelia Osborne (1754-1784) and fled with her to France, where the fugitive gave birth to a daughter - Her Grace Augusta Byron (1783-1851), the poet’s only half-sister (August later played a sinister role in Byron’s fate ) - and died.
Mad John had no means of livelihood left, but luck did not abandon the rake. Pretty soon he met a rich bride at the fashionable resort of Bath - Catherine Gordon Gate (1770-1811). Outwardly, the girl was “ugly” - short, fat, long-nosed, too ruddy, but after the death of her father she inherited substantial capital, a family estate, salmon fisheries and shares in the Aberdeen Bank.
The ancient Scottish family of Gordons was related to the royal Stuart dynasty. The Gordons were famous for their furious temper, many ended their lives on the gallows, and one of them, John Gordon II (c. 1599-1634), was hanged for one of the most famous political murders in history - Wallenstein *. Many famous Scottish ballads tell of the exploits of the crazy Gordons. But by the end of the 18th century this genus was almost extinct. The poet's great-grandfather drowned, his grandfather drowned himself. To prevent the family from disappearing completely, Katherine’s son was given a second surname - Gordon.
* For more details, see Eremin V.N. “Geniuses of Intrigue: From Godunov to Hitler,” chapter “The Murder of Wallenstein.” - M.: “Veche”, 2013.
John Byron married Catherine Gordon for convenience; she passionately loved and at the same time hated her husband until the end of her days.
Newborn George was very beautiful, but as soon as he stood up, his family saw with horror that the boy was limping. It turned out that the shy mother had severely tightened her womb during pregnancy, as a result of which the fetus was in the wrong position and had to be pulled out during childbirth. In this case, the ligaments on the child’s legs were incurably damaged.
John Byron acted vilely with his second wife and her son. He squandered Catherine's fortune, estate, and shares by deception, after which he fled to France, where he died in 1791 at the age of thirty-six. It was rumored that the adventurer had committed suicide. Little George never forgot his father, and all his life he admired his military exploits.
Catherine and baby Geordie moved closer to her family in the Scottish city of Aberdeen, where she rented furnished rooms for a reasonable fee and hired two maids - sisters May and Agnes Gray. May looked after the boy.
The child grew up kind and obedient, but was extremely hot-tempered. One day the nanny scolded him for his soiled dress. Geordie took off his clothes and, looking sternly at May Gray, silently tore the dress from top to bottom.
Events in little Byron's life developed very quickly. At the age of five he went to school; at the age of nine, George fell in love for the first time - with his cousin Mary Duff; and when the boy was ten years old, in May 1798, his great-uncle Lord William Byron (1722-1798) died, and the titles of the sixth Baron Byron and peerage, and the family estate of Newstead Abbey near Nottingham, passed to George. Lord Frederick Howard of Carlisle (1748-1825), who was Byron's distant relative on his mother's side, was appointed guardian of the young lord. Katherine and her son moved to their own estate. Ancient house was located near the famous Sherwood Forest, on the shore of a large lake, half overgrown with reeds.
In the autumn of 1805, George entered Trinity College, Cambridge University. From now on, he began to receive pocket money. However, as soon as the young man had his own money, he abandoned his studies, settled in a separately rented apartment, took a mistress of whores, and hired boxing and fencing teachers. Having learned about this, Mrs. Byron threw a huge scandal at her son and tried to beat him with fireplace tongs and a dustpan. George had to hide from his mother for some time.
At Cambridge, Byron was already writing poetry. One day he showed them to Elizabeth Pigot (1783-1866), the elder sister of his college friend John Pigot (1785-1871). The girl was four years older than the boys and enjoyed special reverence among them. Elizabeth was delighted with the poetry of seventeen-year-old George and persuaded him to publish what he read. In 1806, Byron published the book “Poems for Occasion” for a narrow circle of friends. A year later, the collection "Leisure Hours - by George Gordon Byron, a minor" followed. Critics ridiculed him for this book. The young poet was wounded to the core and for some time thought about suicide.
On July 4, 1808, Byron received his Master of Arts degree and left Cambridge. He returned to Newstead. The mother was not there - at first the estate was rented out, and then the young man assured Catherine that the mansion was being renovated. So George celebrated his coming of age (21 years old) away from his mother and quite cheerfully.
It's time to assume your peerage. The young man presented himself in the House of Lords and took the oath of office on March 13, 1809. The Lord Chancellor John Eldon (Ealdon) (1751-1838) presided at the time.
Almost immediately after the oath-taking ceremony, Byron and his closest friend at Cambridge, John Cam Hobhouse (1786-1869), set off on a journey - through Lisbon through Spain to Gibraltar, from there by sea to Albania, where they were invited to stay by the Turkish despot Ali, known for his courage and cruelty - Pasha Tepelensky* (1741-1822). The pasha's residence was in Ioannina, a city in northwestern Greece. There the travelers were met by a small, gray-haired seventy-year-old good-natured old man, famous for roasting his enemies alive on a spit and once drowning twelve women in the lake at once who did not please his daughter-in-law. From Ioannina, Byron and a friend went to Athens, then they visited Constantinople, Malta... Only on July 17, 1811, Lord Byron returned to London and stayed there for a short time on personal business, when news arrived that on August 1, 1811, in Newstead, she died suddenly in the result of a stroke by his mother Katherine Byron.
* The fantastic story of the fate of the Yanino Pasha was told by Alexandre Dumas the father and Auguste Macke in the novel “The Count of Monte Cristo”.
Having buried his closest person, Byron decided to seek solace in parliamentary activities. On February 27, 1812, he made his first speech in the House of Lords - against the Tory bill on death penalty for weavers who deliberately broke newly invented knitting machines.
And then a significant event occurred in the history of world poetry. From his trip, Byron brought back the manuscript of a poem composed in Spencerian stanzas, telling the story of a sad wanderer who is destined to experience disappointment in the sweet hopes and ambitious hopes of his youth. The poem was called "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." The book with the first two songs of the poem was published on February 29, 1812, on this day one of the greatest poets of all times and all peoples, George Gordon Byron, was revealed to the world. In the world of literature, the tearful melancholic Werther was replaced by the gloomy skeptic Childe Harold.
London's secular society was shocked by this poetic masterpiece. For several months, the capital of a powerful empire talked only about Byron, everyone admired and admired him. The lionesses of high society organized a real hunt for the poet. And in general, in Europe, the cult of Byron almost immediately began to take shape - one of the first in history manifestations of the idiotic creation of educated humanity - mass culture. Apparently then, if not earlier, the poet began to develop an illness that we call megalomania. Over the years, it only worsened and took on pathological forms.
The daughter-in-law of Byron's good friend Lord Peniston Melbourne (1745-1828) - Lady Caroline Lamb * (1785-1828) described her impressions of her first meeting with the poet: “An angry, crazy person with whom it is dangerous to deal.” Two days later, when Byron himself came to visit her, Lamb wrote in her diary: “This beautiful pale face will be my destiny.” She became Byron's mistress and did not want to hide this from London society. The poet came to Caroline in the morning and spent whole days in her boudoir. In the end, Caroline’s mother and mother-in-law rose to defend the honor of the libertine’s husband. Oddly enough, the women turned to Byron for help. By that time, George had become fairly tired of his mistress, which is why he happily joined the fighters for morality. The three of them began to persuade Caroline to return to her husband. But madly in love with the poet, the woman did not want to listen to anything. To finally bring her to her senses, Byron asked the hand of Caroline's cousin, Anna Annabella Milbank (1792-1860). Once he was refused, but after a second matchmaking the girl agreed.
* For more information about the connection between Byron and Caroline Lamb, see Eremin V.N. “Geniuses of Intrigue: From Godunov to Hitler,” chapter “The Grievances of Lady Caroline Lamb.” - M.: “Veche”, 2013.
During his love epic with Caroline Lamb, when the poor woman tried to commit suicide with a dull knife right at a high society ball, Byron committed one of the most shameful acts in his life. In January 1814, his half-sister Augusta came to stay with him in Newstead. George fell in love and had an incestuous relationship with her
The poet Byron did not stop at Childe Harold. Next, he created a cycle of “oriental” poems: “The Giaour” and “The Bride of Abydos” were published in 1813, “The Corsair” and “Lara” - in 1814.
The marriage of Byron and Annabella Milbank took place on January 2, 1815. Two weeks later, Augusta arrived in London again, and “life for the three of us” began. It soon became known that Lord Byron's condition was significantly upset, that he had nothing to support his wife. Debts to creditors amounted to an astronomical amount - almost 30 thousand pounds. Discouraged, Byron became embittered with the whole world, started drinking, and began blaming his wife for all his troubles...
Frightened by her husband's wild antics, Anabella decided that he had fallen into madness. On December 10, 1815, the woman gave birth to Byron's daughter, Augusta Ada (1815-1852), and on January 15, 1816, taking the baby with her, she left for Leicestershire to visit her parents. A few weeks later, she announced that she would not return to her husband. Later, contemporaries claimed that Anabella was informed about Byron’s incest with Augusta and about the poet’s homosexual relations. Biographers, having studied numerous documents of that time, came to the conclusion that the vast majority of dirty rumors about the poet came from the circle of the vengeful Caroline Lamb. True, there is no smoke without fire, but we will talk about this below.
The poet agreed to live separately with his wife. On April 25, 1816, he left for Europe forever. IN last days Before leaving, Byron entered into a love affair with Claire Clairmont (1798-1879). In fact, the girl's name was Jane Clairmont, but she demanded to be called Claire - with this name she entered the history of world literature. She was the adopted daughter from the second marriage of the philosopher William Godwin (1756-1836), predecessor and like-minded person of the famous Thomas Malthus (1766-1834). Claire Clairmont was an impetuous, sincere girl of an adventurous nature, she dreamed of becoming an actress and, to her misfortune, fell passionately in love with a poet. Byron initially treated her as an insignificant, quarrelsome commoner, designed to temporarily satisfy his lust, nothing more. Claire herself came to her idol’s house and gave herself to him on the very first evening.
In Europe, Byron initially decided to settle in Geneva. Imagine his displeasure when, on the day of his arrival, Miss Claremont showed up in his room, who, as it turned out, had already been living in the same hotel for several days. The girl brought with her to introduce her half-sister Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin's (1797-1851) lover, the aspiring poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822).
Byron was already familiar with Shelley’s work, but the poets’ personal acquaintance took place only that day in Geneva. George and Percy became friends immediately, and according to Caroline Lamb's entourage, they became lovers. Official biographies claim that Byron simply had fatherly feelings for the fragile, passionate Shelley and his charming lover. Mary was Godwin's natural daughter from his first wife, the founder of the feminist movement, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797). By the time Byron and Shelley met, Mary's mother had already died, and her father kicked her daughter out of the house for debauchery. At the same time, Godwin excommunicated his half-sister Claire, who followed him everywhere, from home. With the latter, Byron fornicated out of indulgence, until in August of the same year it became clear that the girl was pregnant.
It must be said here that at the end of the 20th century, after careful research of Byron’s personal papers and the correspondence of his contemporaries, more and more larger number scientists are forced to admit the poet's bisexuality. It is believed that it all started with his unconventional relationship with his own page, the handsome young Robert Rushton (1793-1833), the son of a tenant in Newstead. Their connection happened shortly before Byron left on his first trip; it was not renewed later. In 1809 - 1810, already in Greece, Byron had a long, sinless relationship with fifteen-year-old Nicolo Giraud (1795 - ?). Other names of young people with whom Byron sympathized in different years of his life are also mentioned; in this case it makes no sense to name a list of them. I will only note that all the evidence given by researchers of the poet’s homosexual preferences is indirect.
Be that as it may, poet friends Byron and Shelley visited Chillon Castle together*. Both were shocked by what they saw. Upon returning from the excursion, Byron composed the poetic story “The Prisoner of Chillon” in one night, and Shelley created “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.” In Geneva, Byron also composed a third song, “Childe Harold,” and began the dramatic poem “Manfred.”
* The famous castle-prison, which for many centuries controlled the only road through the St. Bernard Pass, connecting Central Europe with Southern Europe. Located on the shores of Lake Geneva, 3 km from the city of Montreux.
The already established cult of Byron in Europe turned out to be its bad side for the poet. Even before his arrival to the shores of Lake Geneva, a stir began among the local public. When Byron arrived, his every step was accompanied by the eyepieces of numerous binoculars. The curious were not embarrassed in their attempts to find out the most hidden secrets from the life of the idol. In the end, these persecutions became disgusting.
Byron chose to go to Italy. The Shelley family returned to England, where on January 12, 1817, Claire Clairmont gave birth to a daughter, Allegra (1817-1822), from Byron. By preliminary agreement, in the summer of that year the girl was given to her father. Having played enough with the child and having acquired a new passion, the poet chose to send his daughter to be raised in a monastery in Bagnacavallo.
* Read more about the twists and turns of the tragic fate of Claire Clairmont and Allegra in the chapter “Percy Bysshe Shelley” of this book.
Byron chose as his permanent place residence Venice. He rented the Moncenigo Palace on the Grand Canal. There Manfred was completed, there the poet began writing the fourth song of Childe Harold, the satire Beppo was composed and Don Juan began.
Since Byron was constantly short of money, in the fall of 1818 he sold Newstead for 90 thousand guineas, paid off all his debts and was able to start a quiet, prosperous life. Every year for the publication of his works, Byron received gigantic money for those times - 7 thousand pounds, and if we take into account that he also had annual interest on other real estate in the amount of 3.3 thousand pounds, then we must admit that in the first third of the 19th century Lord Byron was one of the richest men in Europe. Growing fat, having grown long hair with glimpses of the first gray hair - this is how he now appeared before his Venetian guests.
But in 1819, Byron's last, deepest love came to him. At one of the social evenings, the poet accidentally met the young Countess Teresa Guiccioli (1800-1873). She was called the “Titian blonde.” Having recently graduated from a convent school, the countess had been legally married for less than a year, and her husband was forty years older than his wife. Since in Venetian society it was the order of things for every married lady to have an indispensable lover, Signor Alexander Guiccioli (1760-1829) treated Byron very friendly and even rented out the top floor of his own palace to him, thus encouraging the growing passion of his wife and poet. However, Teresa’s entire family - father, brother and the girl herself - turned out to be Carbonari*. They quickly drew Byron into the conspiracy, who began purchasing weapons abroad for future rebels. Guiccioli was loyal to the Austrian authorities and, having learned what was happening behind his back, hastened to take his wife to Ravenna. On the eve of their departure, Teresa became Byron's mistress and thereby virtually decided his future fate.
* Carbonari - members of a secret society in Italy of the 19th century, who fought for the unification of Italy, the liberation of the country from the Austrian occupation and the introduction of a constitutional system
In June 1819, the poet followed his lover to Ravenna. He settled in the Palazzo Guiccioli. Teresa's father, Count Ruggero Gamba (1770-1846), who saw his daughter's torment, obtained permission from the Pope for the Countess to live separately from her husband. At the same time, she did not have the right to marry again; if evidence of her love affair on the side appeared, Teresa should have been arrested and imprisoned in a monastery.
His stay in Ravenna became unusually fruitful for Byron: he wrote new songs “Don Juan”, “Dante’s Prophecy”, a historical drama in verse “Marino Faliero”, translated Luigi Pulci’s poem “Great Morgante”...
Meanwhile, a Carbonari conspiracy was brewing in the city. Byron purchased weapons for the conspirators at his own expense. One evening, the poet came home and found all these weapons on the threshold of his palace: a rumor spread throughout the city that the conspiracy had been discovered and the authorities were preparing for general arrests, and therefore the revolutionaries preferred to get rid of dangerous evidence. The authorities actually uncovered the conspiracy, but they did not persecute anyone, only the leaders were sent away. Among them was the entire Gamba family. Teresa retired to Florence.
Byron moved to Pisa. There the news arrived that the poet's mother-in-law, Lady Judith Milbanke Noel (1751-1822), had died. She was not angry with her unlucky son-in-law and bequeathed him 6 thousand pounds, but on the condition that he take the surname Noel, since this family had no descendants in the male line. From now on, the poet became fully known as George Noel Gordon Byron.
Following the news of the death of the old lady came the news of the death of five-year-old Allegra - the girl contracted typhus in the monastery. Byron was shocked, he suffered - one evening. The next morning, the poet declared that everything that was happening was for the best: Allegra was illegitimate and the life of an outcast pariah awaited her. Undoubtedly, dad was lying to himself, but having calmed down with such reasoning, Byron forbade reminding him of his daughter, while those around him continued to express sympathy for him and talk about the titanic suffering of a genius.
In the summer of 1822, a villa was rented on the Shelley coast near Pisa. Percy often came to Byron, they decided to publish their own magazine in London. On July 8, 1822, returning home by sea after one of these meetings, Shelley was caught in a storm and died. On July 16, 1822, Byron cremated the remains of his friend with his own hands. Local authorities gave special permission for this as an exception, only out of respect for the great poet Byron, since according to Italian quarantine rules, the drowned man had to be buried in the sand on the shore, after first pouring quicklime over the corpse.
Unexpectedly, the London “Greek Committee” turned to the poet with a request to help Greece in the war of independence against the Ottoman Empire. They counted on his money, but on July 15, 1823, Byron left Genoa on his personal yacht to take part in the Greek uprising. The poet fully financed the equipment of the rebel fleet and at the beginning of January 1824 he joined the leader of the Greek uprising, Prince Alexander Mavrocordato (1791-1865), in Missolongi (Mesolongion), the capital of Western mainland Greece. Under the command of someone who knew nothing about military affairs
Byron was given a detachment of Souliotes*, to whom he paid allowances from his personal funds. This was the end of his participation in the uprising, but this did not stop the Greeks from declaring Byron their national hero, a fighter for the independence of the people.
* The Souliotes are a Greco-Albanian mountain tribe.
The poet's residence became the island of Kefalonia. There he caught a cold after swimming in the cold sea. Pain in the joints appeared, which developed into convulsions. Doctors talked about an epileptic attack. After some time, improvement came, and Byron, who was very bored, wanted to take a short horse ride. As soon as he drove a relatively far distance from the house, a heavy icy downpour began. Two hours after returning from a walk, the poet developed a fever.
After suffering from a fever for several days, George Noel Gordon Byron died on April 19, 1824, at the age of thirty-seven. On July 16 of the same year, the poet's remains were buried in the Byron family crypt in the Hunkell Torquard church near Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire.
The fate and creativity of Byron, his skepticism, pride and contemplation of the world from the outside had a huge influence on European society in the first half of the 19th century. The fashion for thoughtful, silent condescension towards the little ones of this world, embellished with revolutionary impulses somewhere in the name of an ideal, was called Byronism in history. The greatest bearers of Byronism were the greatest poets of Russia - A.S. Pushkin and M.Yu. Lermontov. Pushkin, in particular, did not hide the fact that he created “Eugene Onegin” largely under the influence of the work of the English genius.
Byron's works were translated into Russian by V.A. Zhukovsky, A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, A.N. Maikov, L.A. May, A.A. Fet, A.N. Pleshcheev and many other outstanding poets.
Byron's poetry in translations by Russian poets
From "The Prisoner of Chillon"
Look at me: I'm gray
But not from frailty and age;
Not sudden fear on one night
He gave me gray hair before the deadline.
I'm hunched over, my forehead is wrinkled,
But not toil, not cold, not heat -
Prison destroyed me.
Deprived of a sweet day,
Breathing without air, in chains,
I slowly grew decrepit and wasted away,
And life seemed endless.
The lot of the unfortunate father -
For faith death and shame of chains -
The sons also became the lot.
There were six of us - there are no longer five.
Father, a sufferer from a young age,
Died as an old man at the stake,
Two brothers who fell into the past,
Having sacrificed honor and blood,
Saved the souls of your love.
Three buried alive
At the bottom of the prison depths -
And two were devoured by the depths;
Only me, a ruin alone,
He survived on his own mountain,
To mourn their lot.
On the bosom of the waters stands Chillon;
There are seven columns in the dungeon
Covered with wet summer moss.
A sad light dawns on them -
Ray, inadvertently from above
Fell into a crack in the wall
And buried in the darkness.
And on the damp prison floor
It shines dimly, lonely,
Like a light above a swamp,
In the darkness blowing the night.
Each column has a ring;
And the chains hang in those rings;
And those iron chains are poison;
It bit into my limbs;
Will never be destroyed
The mark pressed by him.
And the day is hard on my eyes,
Unaccustomed from so many years ago
Look at the pleasing light;
And to the will my soul has cooled
Since my brother was last
Killed unwillingly in front of me
And, next to the dead, I, alive,
Tormented on the prison floor.
We were the chains
Nailed to the columns,
Although together, they are separated;
We couldn't take a step
In each other's eyes we can tell each other apart
The pale darkness of the prison disturbed us.
He gave us someone else's face -
And brother became unknown to brother.
There was one thing we enjoyed:
Give each other a voice,
Awaken each other's hearts
Or the reality of glorious antiquity,
Or the sonorous song of war -
But soon it's the same thing
In the darkness of the prison is exhausted;
Our voice has become terribly wild,
He became a hoarse echo
Blind prison walls;
He wasn't the sound of old times
In those days, like ourselves,
Powerful, free and alive!
Is it a dream?.. but their voice is mine too
Always sounded like a stranger to me.
Translation by V.A. Zhukovsky
Jewish melody
(From Byron)
My soul is gloomy. Hurry, singer, hurry!
Here is a golden harp:
Let your fingers, rushing along it,
The sounds of paradise will awaken in the strings.
And if fate did not take away hope forever,
They will wake up in my chest,
And if there is a drop of tears in the frozen eyes -
They will melt and spill.
Let your song be wild. - Like my crown,
The sounds of fun are painful to me!
I tell you: I want tears, singer,
Or your chest will burst from pain.
She was full of suffering,
She languished for a long time and silently;
And the terrible hour has come - now it is full,
Like a cup of death full of poison.
Translation by M. Yu. Lermontov
Melody
My soul is sad! Sing a song, singer!
The voice of the harp is kind to the sad soul.
Enchant my ears with the magic of hearts,
Harmony with sweet omnipotent power.
If there is a spark of hope in my heart,
Her inspired harp will awaken;
When even a tear remains in him,
It will spill, and my heart will not burn.
But songs of sadness, singer, sing to me:
My heart no longer beats for joy;
Make me cry; or long melancholy
My oppressed heart will burst!
I have suffered enough, endured enough;
I'm tired! - Let your heart or be broken
And my earthly unbearable lot will end,
Or he will reconcile himself with life as a golden harp.
Translation by N.I. Gnedich
Love and death
I looked at you when our enemy walked by,
Ready to defeat him or fall with you in blood,
And if the hour struck, I would share with you, my love,
Everything, remaining faithful to freedom and love.
I looked at you in the seas, when on the rocks
The ship struck in the chaos of stormy waves,
And I prayed for you to trust me;
The tomb is my chest, the hand is the boat of salvation.
I fixed my gaze on your sick and clouded gaze,
And the bed gave way and, exhausted by the vigil,
He clung to his feet, ready to surrender himself to the dead earth,
If only you would go into the sleep of death so early.
The earthquake was going on and the walls were shaking,
And everything swayed before me as if from wine.
Who was I looking for in the empty hall?
You. Whose life did I save? You alone.
And with a convulsive sigh, suffering spiraled into me,
The thought was already extinguished, the tongue was already numb,
To you, giving you my last breath,
Ah, more often than it should, my spirit flew to you.
Oh, a lot has passed; but you didn't fall in love,
You won't fall in love, no! Love is always free.
I don't blame you, but fate has judged me -
It’s criminal, without hope, to love everything again and again.
Translation by A.A. Blok
Song to the Souliots
Children of Suli! Rush into battle
Do your duty like a prayer!
Through the ditches, through the gates:
Baua, baua, souliots!
There are beauties, there is prey -
To battle! Create your own custom!
Holy foray banner,
Scattering the enemy formations,
Your native mountains banner -
The banner of your wives is above you.
To battle, to attack, Strathcotes,
Baua, baua, souliots!
Our plow is a sword: so take an oath
Here to reap the golden harvest;
Where a hole is made in the wall,
The enemies' wealth is hidden there.
There is loot, glory is with us -
So go ahead, argue with the thunder!
Translation by A.A. Blok
When I pressed you to my chest,
Full of love and happiness and reconciled with fate,
I thought: only death will separate us from you,
But now we are separated by the envy of people.
May you forever, beautiful creature,
Their malice has torn them away from my heart,
But believe me, they will not drive your image out of him,
Until your friend fell under the burden of suffering.
And if the dead leave their shelter
And the dust will be reborn from decay to eternal life,
Again my forehead will bow on your chest:
There is no heaven for me without you with me!
Translation by A.N. Pleshcheeva
I've made up my mind, it's time to free myself
I've made up my mind - it's time to free myself
From my dark sorrow,
Take your last breath, say goodbye
With love, in your memory!
I shunned worries and light
And I was not created for them,
Now I parted with joy,
What troubles should I fear?
I want feasts, I want a hangover;
I will begin to live soulless in the world;
Happy to share the fun with everyone,
You can’t share your grief with anyone.
Was it the same as before!
But the happiness of life is taken away:
Here in the world I am abandoned by you
You are nothing - and everything is nothing.
A smile is only a threat,
From under it the sadness is more visible;
She is like a rose on a tomb;
The torment is compressed more tightly.
Here between friends in a noisy conversation
Involuntarily the cup will come to life,
The mad spirit will burst into joy, -
But the languid heart is sad.
It used to be a full month
Above the ship in the silence of the night:
He silvers the Aegean waves...
And I, striving for you with my soul,
I loved to dream that your sweet gaze
Now the same moon captivates.
O Tirza! over your grave
Then she was already shining.
In sleepless hours of illness,
How the poison boiled, stirring the blood -
“No,” I thought, “by the suffering of a friend
Love will not be alarmed!”
An unnecessary gift to him is freedom,
Who in chains is a victim of decrepit years.
Here nature will resurrect me -
For what? - you are no longer alive.
When love and life are so new
In those days you gave me a pledge:
Sorrow paints harsh rock
Darkens it in front of me.
That heart grew cold forever,
Who brought everything to life;
Mine without death is numb,
But the feeling of torment is not without.
The pledge of love, eternal sorrow,
Snuggle, snuggle to my chest;
Be the guardian of heartfelt loyalty,
Or kill the sad heart!
In melancholy the rebellious heat does not go out,
Burns behind the shadow of the grave,
And to the dead flame the hopeless
Holier than love for the living.
Translation by I. Kozlov
George Noel Gordon Byron (1788–1824)
Romantic poet, thinker, member of the House of Lords. Byron belonged to an aristocratic but impoverished family; ten years after the death of his grandfather, he inherited the title of lord.
As a student at Cambridge University, he published the collection Leisure Hours (1807), and his fame was brought to him by the poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, published in separate editions from 1812 to 1818.
His poems and poems convey a complex, changeable range of feelings: from reckless rebellion to despair caused by the omnipotence of “darkness”.
Byron's conflict with conformist English society, which began after his poetic debut, aggravated his extremely unsuccessful marriage with Annabela Milbank. In January 1816, she left Byron because of his “terrible habits,” by which she meant rejection of any orthodoxy, including indisputable moral prohibitions. The scandal was fueled by unfounded rumors about the poet’s more than kindred feelings for his half-sister Augusta Lee. She was the recipient of several of his most heartfelt poems.
In May 1816, Byron was forced to leave his homeland - as it turned out, forever. The shock he experienced became an “eternal poison” that poisoned his life in the remaining years. It left its mark on the tone of the cycle of poems “Jewish Melodies” (1815), which echoes the metaphors of the Bible, the poem “The Prisoner of Chillon” (1816), the dramatic mysteries “Manfred” (1817) and “Cain” (1821) G.).
Byron's poems, constructed as a lyrical confession of a character combining the traits of an extraordinary personality and a type that testifies to the beliefs and illnesses of the era, became a literary event.
In Switzerland, where the first months of exile passed, and then in Italy, Byron experienced a creative upsurge, starting in the fall of 1817 with the poetic chronicle “Don Juan.” Passionate love for Countess Teresa Guiccioli, deprived of the opportunity to unite her fate with Byron, contributed to the poet’s rapprochement with the Carbonari and active participation, together with her father and brothers, in the Italian liberation movement. With the outbreak of the Greek uprising against Ottoman rule, Byron subordinated his life to the struggle for the liberation of Hellas, using his own funds to assemble and arm a detachment with which he arrived at the scene of events.
His untimely death, the result of a developing fever, was mourned by all of advanced Europe.
In London (Great Britain), in the family of a bankrupt nobleman, Captain John Byron.
He was brought up in the homeland of his mother Catherine Gordon in Aberdeen (Scotland). After the death of his great-uncle, George Byron inherited the title of baron and the estate of Newstead Abbey, which was located near Nottingham, where Byron moved with his mother. At first, the boy was educated at home, then studied at a private school in Dulwich and Harow. In 1805, Byron entered Trinity College, Cambridge University.
In 1806, Byron published his first book of poetry, Fugitive Pieces, which was written for a narrow circle of readers. A year later, his second book, Hours of Idleness, appeared. Critics unequivocally rejected "Leisure Hours", but a critical publication appeared only a year after the publication of the work itself. During this time, Byron managed to become convinced of his literary talent, so he boldly responded to critics with the satire “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.”
In 1809, Byron left London and went on a long journey. He visited Spain, Albania, Greece, Turkey and Asia Minor.
In 1811, Byron returned to England. At the beginning of 1812, the first two songs of the poem “Child-Harold’s Pilgrimage”, written by him in the East, were published; the third canto was published in 1817, the fourth in 1818, after travels to Switzerland and Italy. The image of Childe Harold embodies the typical features of a new hero who is in irreconcilable conflict with society and morality. The relevance of this image determined the success of the poem, translated into all languages of the world. The name Childe Harold soon became a household word to denote a person who was disappointed in everything, carrying within himself a protest against a reality hostile to him.
Inspired by the success of "Child Harold", the poet continued to work fruitfully, creating from 1812 to 1815 the poems "The Giaour", "The Bride of Abydos", "The Corsair", "Lara" ( Lara).
In 1816, he settled in Switzerland, where he became friends with the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and wrote poems: "The Dream", "Prometheus", "The Prisoner of Chillon", " "The Darkness", the third part of the poem "Childe Harold" and the first acts of "Manfred". In 1818, Byron moved to Venice (Italy), where he created the last act of Manfred, the fourth part of Childe Harold, The Lament of Tasso, Mazeppa, Beppo and the first songs of Don Juan ". In 1818, Byron's estate manager managed to sell Newstead, allowing the poet to pay off his debts. In 1819, Byron wrote The Prophecy of Dante.
In 1820, Byron settled in Ravenna (Italy). During this period, he worked on the historical drama in verse "Marino Faliero", released the satire "The Vision of Judgment", and completed the drama in verse "Cain". In 1821 he moved to Pisa, where he was one of the co-editors of the political magazine Liberal, and here he continued work on Don Giovanni. In 1822, Lord Byron moved to Genoa, where he wrote the drama Werner, the dramatic poem The Deformed Transformed and the poems The Age of Bronze and The Island. In 1823, having equipped a warship at his own expense, the poet sailed to Greece, where a national liberation war against Turkish rule was taking place. He became one of the leaders of the uprising, but fell ill and died of fever in the Greek city of Missolongi on April 19, 1824. Byron was buried in the family crypt at Hunkell Torcard Church near Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire.
Byron was married to Anne Isabella Milbanke, with whom he settled in London. On December 10, 1815, the poet’s daughter, Augusta Ada, was born, but already on January 15, 1816, Lady Byron, taking her daughter with her, went to her parents in Leicestershire, announcing that she would not return to her husband.
Byron's work revealed new sides and possibilities of romanticism as artistic method. The poet introduced a new hero into literature, enriched genre and poetic forms, the language of lyric poetry, and created a new type of political satire. The enormous influence that Byron had on world literature of the 19th century gave rise to a whole movement in various national literatures, known as Byronism. Byronism was reflected in the works of Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov; in Western Europe, the influence of Byron’s work was felt by Victor Hugo, Heinrich Heine, and Adam Mickiewicz. Byron's poems became the basis for the musical works of Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The poet's tragedies were embodied on the opera stage by Gaetano Donizetti and Giuseppe Verdi. Byron's works inspired a number of paintings by Eugene Delacroix.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources
George Gordon Noel Byron, from 1798 6th Baron Byron (eng. George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron; January 22, 1788, Dover - April 19, 1824, Missolungi, Ottoman Greece), usually referred to simply as Lord Byron (Lord Byron) - English poet a romantic who captivated the imagination of all Europe with his “dark selfishness.” Along with P.B. Shelley and J. Keats, he represents the younger generation of English romantics. His alter ego Childe Harold became the prototype for countless Byronic heroes in various European literatures. The fashion for Byronism continued after Byron’s death, even though by the end of his life, in the poetic novel “Don Juan” and the comic poem “Beppo”, Byron himself switched to satirical realism based on the legacy of A. Pope. The poet took part in the Greek Revolution and is therefore considered a national hero of Greece.
Name
Gordon is Byron's second personal name, given to him at baptism and coinciding with his mother's maiden name. Byron's father, however, in laying claim to his father-in-law's Scottish possessions, used "Gordon" as the second part of his surname (Byron-Gordon), and George himself was enrolled at school under the same double surname. At the age of 10, after the death of his great-uncle, George became a peer of England and received the title “Baron Byron”, after which, as is customary among peers of this rank, his usual everyday name became “Lord Byron” or simply “Byron”. Subsequently, Byron's mother-in-law bequeathed property to the poet with the condition that he bear her surname - Noel, and by royal patent Lord Byron was allowed, as an exception, to bear the surname Noel before his title, which he did, sometimes signing "Noel-Byron". Therefore, in some sources it full name may look like George Gordon Noel Byron, although he never signed himself with all these names and surnames at the same time.
Origin
His ancestors, natives of Normandy, came to England with William the Conqueror and, after the Battle of Hastings, were awarded rich estates taken from the Saxons. The original name of the Byrons is Burun. This name is often found in the knightly chronicles of the Middle Ages. One of the descendants of this family, already under Henry II, changed his surname to the surname Byron, in accordance with the reprimand. The Byrons especially rose to prominence under Henry VIII, who, during the abolition of the Catholic monasteries, endowed Sir Byron, nicknamed “Sir John the little with the Great Beard,” with the estates of the wealthy Newstead Abbey in Nottingham County.
During the reign of Elizabeth, the Byron family died out, but the surname passed to the illegitimate son of one of them. Subsequently, during the English Revolution, the Byrons distinguished themselves by their unwavering devotion to the House of Stuart, for which Charles I raised a representative of this family to the rank of peerage with the title of Baron Rochdel. One of the most famous representatives of this family was Admiral John Byron, famous for his extraordinary adventures and wanderings across the Pacific Ocean; the sailors who loved him but considered him unlucky nicknamed him “Foulweather Jack.”
The eldest son of Admiral Byron, also an admiral, was a cruel man who disgraced his name: while drunk, in a tavern, he killed his relative Chaworth in a duel (1765); he was imprisoned in the Tower, convicted of manslaughter, but escaped punishment thanks to the privilege of the peerage. This William Byron's brother, John, was a reveler and a spendthrift. Captain John Byron (1756-1791) married the former Marchioness of Comartin in 1778. She died in 1784, leaving John a daughter, Augusta (later Mrs. Lee), who was later raised by her mother's relatives.
After the death of his first wife, Captain Byron remarried, out of convenience, to Catherine Gordon, the only heiress of the wealthy George Gordon, Esquire. She came from the famous Scottish family of Gordons, in whose veins flowed the blood of Scottish kings (through Annabella Stewart). From this second marriage, the future poet was born in 1788.
Biography
The poverty into which Byron was born, and from which the title of lord did not relieve him, gave direction to his future career. When he was born (on Hall Street in London, January 22, 1788), his father had already spent his entire fortune, and his mother returned from Europe with small remnants of her fortune. Lady Byron settled in Aberdeen, and her “lame boy,” as she called her son, was sent to a private school for a year, then transferred to a classical grammar school. Many stories are told about Byron's childhood antics. The Gray sisters, who nursed little Byron, found that with affection they could do anything with him, but his mother always lost her temper at his disobedience and threw anything at the boy. He often responded to his mother’s outbursts with ridicule, but one day he 
he himself says that the knife with which he wanted to stab himself was taken away. He studied poorly at the gymnasium, and Mary Gray, who read psalms and the Bible to him, brought him more benefit than high school teachers. When George was 10 years old, his great-uncle died, and the boy inherited the title of lord and the Byron family estate - Newstead Abbey. Ten-year-old Byron fell so deeply in love with his cousin Mary Duff that, upon hearing of her engagement, he fell into a hysterical fit. In 1799, he entered Dr. Gleny's school, where he stayed for two years and spent the entire time treating his sore leg, after which he recovered enough to put on boots. During these two years he studied very little, but he read the entire rich library of the doctor. Before leaving for school at Harrow, Byron fell in love again - with another cousin, Marguerite Parker.
In 1801 he went to Harrow; dead languages and antiquity did not attract him at all, but he read all the English classics with great interest and left school with great knowledge. At school, he was famous for his chivalrous attitude towards his comrades and the fact that he always stood up for the younger ones. During the holidays of 1803, he fell in love again, but this time much more seriously than before, with Miss Chaworth, a girl whose father was killed by the “bad Lord Byron.” In the sad moments of his life, he often regretted that she had rejected him.
Youth and the beginning of creativity
At Cambridge University, Byron deepened his scientific knowledge. But he distinguished himself more by the art of swimming, riding, boxing, drinking, playing cards, etc., so the lord constantly needed money and, as a result, “got into debt.” At Harrow, Byron wrote several poems, and in 1807 his first book, Hours of Idleness, appeared in print. This collection of poems decided his fate: having published the collection, Byron became a completely different person. Ruthless criticism of Leisure Hours appeared in the Edinburgh Review only a year later, during which the poet
Autograph
wrote a large number of poems. If this criticism had appeared immediately after the book was published, Byron might have completely abandoned poetry. “Six months before the appearance of merciless criticism, I composed 214 pages of a novel, a poem of 380 verses, 660 lines of “Bosworth Field” and many small poems,” he wrote to Miss Fagot, with whose family he was friends. “The poem I have prepared for publication is a satire.” He responded to the Edinburgh Review with this satire. The criticism of the first book terribly upset Byron, but he published his answer - “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” - only in the spring of 1809. The success of the satire was enormous and was able to satisfy the wounded poet.
First trip
In June 1809, Byron went on a trip. He visited Spain, Albania, Greece, Turkey and Asia Minor, where he swam across the Dardanelles Strait, which he was later very proud of. One might assume that the young poet, having won a brilliant victory over his literary enemies, went abroad contented and happy, but this was not so. Byron left England in a terribly depressed state of mind, and returned even more depressed. Many, identifying him with Childe Harold, assumed that abroad, like his hero, he led a too immoderate life, but Byron protested against this both in print and orally, emphasizing that Childe Harold was only a figment of the imagination. Thomas Moore argued in Byron's defense that he was too poor to maintain a harem. In addition, Byron was worried not only about financial difficulties. At this time he lost his mother, and although he never got along with her, he nevertheless grieved greatly.
"Childe Harold". Glory
On February 27, 1812, Byron made his first speech in the House of Lords, which was a great success: “Is there not enough blood [of rebels] on your criminal code that you need to shed more of it so that it cries to heaven and testifies against you?” "The dark race from the banks of the Ganges will shake your empire of tyrants to its foundations."
Two days after this performance, Childe Harold's first two songs appeared. The poem was a fabulous success, and 14,000 copies were sold in one day, which immediately placed the author among the first literary celebrities. “After reading Childe Harold,” he says, “no one will want to listen to my prose, just as I myself will not want to.” Why Childe Harold was so successful, Byron himself did not know and only said: “One morning I woke up and saw myself famous.”
Childe Harold's journey captivated not only England, but the whole of Europe. The poet touched upon the general struggle of that time, speaks with sympathy about the Spanish peasants, about the heroism of women, and his hot cry for freedom spread far, despite the seemingly cynical tone of the poem. At this difficult moment of general tension, he also recalled the lost greatness of Greece.
Savor
He met Moore. Until this time he had never been to big world and now indulged himself with enthusiasm in the whirlwind of social life. One evening, Dallas even found him in court dress, although Byron did not go to court. In the big world, the lame Byron (his knee was slightly cramped) never felt free and tried to cover up his awkwardness with arrogance.
In March 1813, he published the satire “Waltz” without a signature, and in May he published a story from Turkish life, “The Gyaur,” inspired by his travels through the Levant. The public enthusiastically accepted this story of love and vengeance and greeted with even greater delight the poems “The Bride of Abydos” and “The Corsair”, published in the same year. In 1814, he published “Jewish Melodies,” which had enormous success and was translated many times into all European languages, as well as the poem “Lara” (1814).
Marriage, divorce and scandal
In November 1813, Byron proposed to Miss Anna Isabella Milbank, daughter of Ralph Milbank, a wealthy baronet, granddaughter and heiress of Lord Wentworth. “A brilliant match,” Byron wrote to Moore, “although this was not the reason I made the offer.” He was refused, but Miss Milbank expressed a desire to enter into correspondence with him. In September 1814, Byron renewed his proposal, which was accepted, and they were married in January 1815.
In December, Byron had a daughter named Ada, and the next month Lady Byron left her husband in London and went to her father's estate. While on the road, she wrote her husband an affectionate letter, beginning with the words: “Dear Dick,” and signed: “Yours Poppin.” A few days later, Byron learned from her father that she had decided never to return to him again, and after that Lady Byron herself informed him of this. A month later, a formal divorce took place. Byron suspected that his wife separated from him under the influence of her mother. Lady Byron took full responsibility upon herself. Before her departure, she called Dr. Bolly for a consultation and asked him if her husband had gone crazy. Bolly assured her that it was only her imagination. After this, she told her family that she wanted a divorce. The reasons for the divorce were expressed by Lady Byron's mother to Dr. Lashington, and he wrote that these reasons justified the divorce, but at the same time advised the spouses to reconcile. After this, Lady Byron herself visited Dr. Lashington and told him the facts, after which he also no longer found reconciliation possible.
The true reasons for the Byron couple's divorce forever remained mysterious, although Byron said that “they are too simple, and therefore they are not noticed.” The public did not want to explain the divorce by the simple reason that people did not get along in character. Lady Byron refused to tell the reasons for the divorce, and therefore these reasons turned into something fantastic in the public’s imagination, and everyone vied with each other to see the divorce as a crime, one more terrible than the other (there were rumors about the poet’s bisexual orientation and his incestuous relationship with his sister). The publication of the poem “Farewell to Lady Byron,” published by one indiscreet friend of the poet, raised a whole pack of ill-wishers against him. But not everyone condemned Byron. One Kurier employee stated in print that if her husband had written such a “Farewell” to her, she would have immediately rushed into his arms. In April 1816, Byron finally said goodbye to England, where public opinion, in the person of the “lake poets,” was strongly incited against him.
Life in Switzerland and Italy
Before leaving abroad, he sold his Newstead estate, and this gave Byron the opportunity not to be burdened by constant lack of money. Now he could indulge in the solitude he so craved. Abroad, he settled in the Villa Diodati on the Geneva Riviera. Byron spent the summer at the villa, making two small excursions around Switzerland: one with Hobhaus, the other with the poet Shelley. In the third song of Childe Harold (May-June 1816), he describes his trip to the fields of Waterloo. The idea of writing “Manfred” came to him when, on his way back to Geneva, he saw Jungfrau.
In November 1816, Byron moved to Venice, where, according to his ill-wishers, he led the most depraved life, which, however, did not prevent him from creating a large number of poetic works. In June 1817, the poet wrote the fourth song of “Childe Harold”, in October 1817 - “Beppo”, in July 1818 - “Ode to Venice”, in September 1818 - the first song of “Don Juan”, in October 1818 - “ Mazepa", in December 1818 - the second song of "Don Juan", and in November 1819 - 3-4 songs of "Don Juan".
In April 1819 he met Countess Guiccioli and they fell in love. The Countess was forced to leave with her husband for Ravenna, where Byron followed her. Two years later, the Countess's father and brother, Counts Gamba, involved in a political scandal, had to leave Ravenna together with Countess Guiccioli, who was already divorced at that time. Byron followed them to Pisa, where he continued to live under the same roof with the countess. At this time, Byron was grieving the loss of his friend Shelley, who drowned in the Gulf of Spice. In September 1822, the Tuscan government ordered the Counts of Gamba to leave Pisa, and Byron followed them to Genoa.
Byron lived with the Countess until his departure to Greece and wrote a lot during this time. During this happy period of Byron's life, his following works appeared: “The First Song of Morgante Maggiora” (1820); "Dante's Prophecy" (1820) and trans. “Francesca da Rimini” (1820), “Marino Faliero” (1820), the fifth canto of “Don Giovanni” (1820), “Sardanapalus” (1821), “Letters to Bauls” (1821), “The Two Foscari” (1821 ), "Cain" (1821), "Vision doomsday"(1821), "Heaven and Earth" (1821), "Werner" (1821), the sixth, seventh and eighth songs of "Don Juan" (in February 1822); the ninth, tenth and eleventh songs of Don Juan (in August 1822); “The Bronze Age” (1823), “The Island” (1823), the twelfth and thirteenth songs of “Don Juan” (1824).
Trip to Greece and death
A calm, family life, however, did not save Byron from melancholy and anxiety. He enjoyed all the pleasures and fame he received too greedily. Soon satiety set in. Byron assumed that he had been forgotten in England, and at the end of 1821 he negotiated with Mary Shelley about the joint publication of the English magazine Liberal. However, only three issues were published. However, Byron really began to lose his former popularity. But at this time a Greek uprising broke out. Byron, after preliminary negotiations with the Philhellen committee formed in England to help Greece, decided to go there and began to prepare for his departure with passionate impatience. Using his own funds, he bought an English brig, supplies, weapons and equipped half a thousand soldiers, with whom he sailed to Greece on July 14, 1823. Nothing was ready there, and the leaders of the movement did not get along very well with each other. Meanwhile, costs grew, and Byron ordered the sale of all his property in England, and donated the money to the just cause of the rebel movement. Great importance in the struggle for Greek freedom, Byron had a talent for uniting uncoordinated groups of Greek rebels.
In Missolonghi, Byron fell ill with a fever, continuing to devote all his strength to the fight for the freedom of the country. On January 19, 1824, he wrote to Hancop: “We are preparing for an expedition,” and on January 22, his birthday, he entered Colonel Stanhope’s room, where there were several guests, and said cheerfully: “You reproach me for not writing poems, but I just wrote a poem.” And Byron read: “Today I turned 36 years old.” Byron, who was constantly ill, was very worried about the illness of his daughter Ada. Having received a letter with good news about her recovery, he wanted to go for a walk with Count Gamba. During the walk, it began to rain terribly, and Byron completely fell ill. His last words were fragmentary phrases: “My sister! my child!.. poor Greece!.. I gave her time, fortune, health!.. now I give her my life!” On April 19, 1824, the poet died. Doctors performed an autopsy, removed the organs and placed them in urns for embalming. They decided to leave the lungs and larynx in the Church of St. Spyridon, but they were soon stolen from there. The body was embalmed and sent to England, where it arrived in July 1824. Byron was buried in the family crypt at Hunkell Torquard Church near Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire.
Pansexuality
The intimate life of Lord Byron caused a lot of gossip among his contemporaries. He left his native country amid rumors about his inappropriately close relationship with his half-sister Augusta. When Countess Guiccioli’s book about Lord Byron appeared in 1860, Mrs. Beecher Stowe came out in defense of the memory of his wife with her “True History of the Life of Lady Byron,” based on the deceased’s story, allegedly conveyed to her in secret, that Byron allegedly was in “criminal relationship” with his sister. However, such stories were fully in keeping with the spirit of the era: for example, they form the main content of Chateaubriand’s autobiographical story “Rene” (1802).
Byron's diaries, published in the 20th century, reveal a truly pansexual picture of sex life. Thus, the poet described the port town of Falmouth as a “lovely place” offering “Plen. and optabil. Coit." (“numerous and varied sexual intercourse”): “We are surrounded by Hyacinths and other flowers of the most fragrant nature, and I intend to put together an elegant bouquet to compare with the exoticism that we hope to find in Asia. I’ll even take one sample with me.” This model turned out to be the handsome young Robert Rushton, who “was Byron’s page, like Hyacinth was Apollo’s” (P. Weil). In Athens, the poet took a liking to a new favorite - fifteen-year-old Nicolo Giro. Turkish baths Byron described it as “a marble paradise of sherbet and sodomy.”
After Byron's death, the erotic poem "Don Leon", which tells about the same-sex relationships of the lyrical hero, in which Byron was easily guessed, began to diverge in the lists. The publisher William Dugdale spread a rumor that this was an unpublished work by Byron and, under the threat of publishing the poem, tried to extort money from his relatives. Modern literary scholars call the real author of this “freethinking” work George Colman.
The fate of Byron's family
The poet's widow, Lady Anne Isabella Byron, spent the rest of her long life in solitude, engaged in charity work - completely forgotten in the big world. Only the news of her death, on May 16, 1860, awakened memories of her.
Lord Byron's legitimate daughter Ada, married Earl William Lovelace in 1835 and died on November 27, 1852, leaving two sons and a daughter. She is known as a mathematician, one of the first creators of computer technology, and a collaborator of Charles Babbage. According to a well-known legend, she proposed several fundamental principles of computer programming and is considered the first programmer.
Lord Byron's eldest grandson, Noel, was born on May 12, 1836, served briefly in the English navy, and after a wild and disorderly life, died on October 1, 1862, as a laborer in one of the London docks. The second grandson, Ralph Gordon Noel Milbank, was born on July 2, 1839, and after the death of his brother, who shortly before his death inherited the barony of Wintworth from his grandmother, became Lord Wentworth.
Nature of creativity and influence
Byron's poems are more autobiographical than the works of other English romantics. He felt more acutely than many others the hopeless discrepancy between romantic ideals and reality. The awareness of this discrepancy did not always plunge him into melancholy and despondency; in his latest works, the removal of masks from people and phenomena evokes nothing but an ironic smile. Unlike most romantics, Byron respected the heritage of English classicism, puns and caustic satire in the spirit of Pope. His favorite octave predisposed him to lyrical digressions and games with the reader.
In Victorian England, Lord Byron was all but forgotten; his popularity was in no way comparable to the posthumous success of Keats and Shelley. “Who reads Byron these days? Even in England! - Flaubert exclaimed in 1864. In continental Europe, including Russia, the peak of Byronism occurred in the 1820s, but by the middle of the 19th century, the Byronic hero was reduced and became the property of predominantly mass and adventure literature.
Everyone started talking about Byron, and Byronism became a point of insanity for beautiful souls. It was from this time that little great people began to appear among us in crowds with the seal of a curse on their foreheads, with despair in their souls, with disappointment in their hearts, with deep contempt for the “insignificant crowd.” Heroes suddenly became very cheap. Every boy whom the teacher left without lunch for not knowing the lesson consoled himself in grief with phrases about the fate pursuing him and about the inflexibility of his soul, struck but not defeated.
- V. Belinsky.
Material taken from the site http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron,_George_Gordon
Books
Selected works
volume 1
volume 2
Dyakonova N.Ya. Lyric poetry of Byron (From the history of world culture) - 1975
The Collected Works of Byron (1904). Volumes I-II
volume 1
volume 2
