George Gordon Byron

As we know George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) was the most colourful of the English romantic poets. There is no doubt that his adventurous life was as interesting as his poetry; his poetry reflects his own experiences and beliefs. Sometimes it is violent, sometimes it is tender, and it is frequently exotic.

George Gordon Byron was born in London, but he lived first 10 years in Scotland with his mother. His father, who had abandoned Byron's mother, died when the boy was 3. Byron inherited the title Lord Byron at the age of 10, upon the death of one of his relatives. Then he returned to England, where he attended Harrow School and Cambridge University. Byron's first book of poems, «Hours of Idleness» (1807), was severely criticized by the «Edinburgh Review», a Scottish literary magazine. Byron replied with «English Bards and Scotch Reviewers» (1809), a verse satire in which he attacked almost every notable literary figure of the day.

From 1809 to 1811 Byron travelled through southern Europe and parts of the Near East. In 1812, he published the first two sections of «Childe Harold's Pilgrimage». Such verse tales as «The Bride of Abydos» (1813) and «The Corsair» (1814) kept him in the public eye. In 1815 Byron married Anne Isabella Mibanke, they had a daughter, Ada, but their marriage wasn't happy and a long one. Rumours that Byron had committed incest with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, broke Byron's marriage and he had to leave England forever.

Byron went to Switzerland, where he met his fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Then he moved to Italy, where he carried on a long romance with the Countess Teresa Guiccioli and was involved in Italian revolutionary politics. There he wrote dramas such as «Манфред» (1817), and «Cain» (1821). His last and greatest work was epic «Don Juan», it was long, though unfinished. In 1823 Byron joins the Greeks in their war for independence from the Turks. After a brief illness, he died in Missolonghi, Greece.

First two sections of Byron's «Childe Harold's Pilgrimage» were written as a fictional allegory with the stanza form and many features of the literary style of the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser. This work and Turkish Tales» (1813-1816) that followed defined the character type known as «the Byronic hero». This character is the melancholy, defiant, proudly self-assured man associated with Byron and widely imitated in later literature.

During his last years, Byron wrote historical and Biblical tragedies such as «Sardanapalus» (1821) и «Cain». «Don Juan» is considered the masterpiece of his Italian period.