Lecture 12 Lord Byron
• Introduction to George Gordon Byron
• born in an impoverished noble family in
London in 1788, a year before the French
Revolution.
• His father was a captain nicknamed " Mad Jack',
who had squandered away the money of the
poet's mother and then deserted her.
• For some years mother and son lived in
loneliness and poverty in Scotland. His mother, a
passionate woman, petted and abused him
alternately.
• Byron was born with a clubfoot, and in the
frequent family scenes his mother called him
"you lame brat.”
• So the poet's early years had been far from
happy.
• In 1815, Byron married Miss Milbank, a solemnly
religious young woman who made up her mind to
"reform" Byron by marrying him.
• It proved a most unhappy marriage. A year later, shortly
after the birth of their daughter Ada, she left him and
refused to come back, saying that" he was insane'.
• Now the freedom-loving character of Byron's poetry and
his "seditious speeches" in Parliament had long evoked
hatred for him on the part of the English ruling classes.
They grasped Byron's misfortune in family life as a
pretext to launch a wholesale attack against him.
• "I felt" he wrote." that, if what was whispered, and
mattered, and murmured, was true, I was unfit for
England; if false, England was unfit for me."
• On April 25, 1816, he set sail for Europe, never to return.
• Byron first went to Switzerland, where he
made acquaintance with Shelley. The two
poets visited the castle of Chillon, in which
the Swiss revolutionary Bonnivard (14961570) had been imprisoned for several
years.
• Shortly afterwards Byron wrote the famous
"Sonnet on Chillon" and the narrative
poem The “Prisoner of Chillon'(1816).
• In Switzerland he also wrote “Manfred” a
poetical drama, and other poems.
Introduction to His major Works
“Childe Harold's Pilgrimage":
• This long poem contains four cantos. It is written in the
Spenserian stanza, i.e. a 9-line stanza rhymed
ababbcbcc, in which the first eight lines are in iambic
pentameter while the ninth in iambic hexameter.
• The poem tells of Childe ( =a youth of noble birth)
Harold's travels in Europe.
• Harold is a young aristocrat whose' world-weariness'
bespeaks his loathing for English high society. He leaves
his country to escape from the society he fears and
hates. Being solitary and melancholy, he seeks the
companionship of mountains and seas.
• The first canto deals with Portugal and Spain.
The poet praises Portugal as the "delicious land'
where "fruits of fragrance blush on every tree,'
but he feels acutely the poverty of the oppressed
people. Then he depicts the Spaniards in their
Struggle against foreign aggression.
• The second canto describes Albania and Greece.
The author paints pictures of the "dark blue sea",
moonlit nights and places famous in ancient
history. He laments over the fallen state of fair
Greece", reminds the Greeks of their heroic past,
and encourages them to strive for liberty with
their own arms.
• The third canto was written 6 or 7 years later
than the first two cantos. During the long interval,
the poet suffered so much from the venom and
spite of the high society.
• The fourth canto sings of Italy and the Italian
people who have given the world great writers
and thinkers like Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio,
Tasso and Galileo.
• Byron exposes the reactionary rulers of Europe,
and especially the Holy Alliance. His ardent love
of liberty and his firm belief in the people's final
triumph find expression in lyrical outbursts.
• "Don Juan':
• "Don Juan" was written in Italy during the years
1818-1823. It is 16,000 lines long, in 16 cantos,
and written in ottava rima, each stanza
containing 8 iambic pentameter lines rhymed
abababcc.
• The story of the poem takes place in the latter
part of the l8th century. Don Juan, its hero, is a
Spanish youth of noble birth.
• The vicissitudes of his life and his adventures in
many countries are described against varied
social backgrounds, and he is seen to take part
in different historical events, thus giving a broad
panorama of contemporary life.
• Don Juan, a handsome and happy-go-lucky
young man, falls in love with Donna Julia, the
wife of Don Alfonso. But the affair is soon
discovered; Julia is Shut up and the young
culprit is sent abroad.
• After a shipwreck in a storm, Juan escapes in a
boat with thirty other Passengers. They are
tossed about on the sea and, one by one die Of
hunger and thirst.
• Juan alone comes out alive and swims to a
Greek island, where he is saved by Haidee, "a
child of nature" and the only daughter of Lambro,
a pirate. The young people become attached to
each other and the love scenes beneath the
moonlit sky are described with great lyric beauty.
• "Don Juan" is Byron’s masterpiece, written in the
prime of his creative power. His aim in writing it
was "to remove the cloke (=cloak) which the
manners and maxims of [high] society throw
over their secret sins. and shew t =show) them
to the world as they really are." He called this
poem an "epic satire". "a satire on abuses of the
present state of society." "Almost all Don Juan,'
he wrote, "is real life, either my own, or from
people I know." In "Don Juan" Byron displayed
his genius as a romanticist and a realist
simultaneously.
• Points of view
• (1) Politically Byron has a strong passion for
liberty and an intense hatred for all tyrants. He
appeals for the liberty of the oppressed nations,
while exalting the great fighters for freedom in
history. He glorifies the French Revolution and
condemns the despotic Napoleon period.
• He gives his strong support to the Spanish,
Portuguese and Italian people fighting for their
national independence. He laments over the
fallen Greece, expressing his ardent wish that
the suppressed Greek people should win their
freedom. At the news of the Greek revolt against
the Turks, Byron not only gave the insurgent
Greeks financial help but also plunged himself
into the struggle for the national independence
of that country.
• (2) Artistically, Byron continued in the
tradition of classicism that had been
advocated by the writers of the
Enlightenment in the l8th century. He
eulogized the 18th-century Enlighteners
and attacked the conservative schools of
contemporary poetry, showing his
contempt for what he considered the
commonplace and vulgarity of the "Lake
Poets".
• Appreciation of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
• This is a poem about the hero Harold, who was
disillusioned in modern civilization and who
decided to leave his native land for foreign
countries in order to be among simpler people.
• The poem presents a panoramic view of all sorts
of things, from colorful descriptions of national
manners and customs and impressive pictures
of nature to the author's philosophical reflections
and his courageous political opinions.
• Appreciation of Don Juan
• Don Juan is a great comic epic, a poem based on a
traditional Spanish legend of a great lover.
• Byron invests in Juan the moral Positives like courage,
generosity and frankness, which, according to Byron, are
virtues neglected by the modern society. In addition, by
making use of Juan's adventures, Byron presents a
panoramic view of different types of society, painting
brilliant pictures of life in its various stages of love, joy,
suffering, hatred and fear.
• The unifying principle in Don Juan is the basic ironic
theme of appearance and reality, i.e. what things seem
to be and what they actually are. The diverse materials
and the clash of emotions gathered in the poem are
harmonized by Byron's insight into the difference
between life's appearance and its actuality.
• Special features
• (1) Owing to his persistent attacks on "cant political,
religious, and moral", attaches to the novelty of his
oriental scenery, to the romantic character of the Byronic
hero, and to the easy, fluent, and natural beauty of his
verse, Byron's poetry exerted great influence on the
Romantic Movement.
• (2) Byron's diction, though unequal and frequently faulty,
has on the whole a freedom, copiousness and vigor.
• (3) His descriptions are simple and fresh, and often bring
vivid objects before the reader. Byron's poetry is like the
oratory which hurries the hearers without applause.
• (4) The glowing imagination of the poet rises and sinks
with the tones of his enthusiasm, roughing into argument,
or softening into the melody feeling and sentiments.
• (5) Byron employed the Ottva Rima (Octave Stanza)
from Italian mock-heroic poetry.
• Song for the Luddites
• As the liberty lads o’er the sea
• Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,
• So we, boy, we
• Will die fighting, or live free,
• And down with all kings but King Ludd!
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When the web that we weave is complete,
And the shuttle exchanged for the sword,
We will fling the winding sheet
O’er the despot at our feet
And dye it deep in the gore he has pur’d,
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Though black as his heart its hue,
Since his veins are corrupted to mud,
Yet this is the dew
Which the tree shall renew
Of Liberty, planted by Ludd!
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路德分子之歌
正如自由的孩子们在海外
用鲜血便宜地买到了自己的解放，
我们也要自由地生活，弟兄们，
不然就在战斗中死亡！
拥护路德，打倒一切国王！
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当我们把织物织完，
当我们把织梭换成刀剑，
我们就会把裹尸布
掷在暴君的面前，
让他们淌出的鲜血把布污染。
那颜色和他的心肠一般乌黑，
因为他的血管如同烂泥般污秽，
但这血却会化成露水，
路德所种植的自由树
会被滋润得技叶青翠
• (1) "Song for the Luddites"
• (A) Main idea
• This is one of the two poems written by Byron to show his consistent
support of the Luddites for whom he made his famous speech in the
House of Lords in 1812. The Luddites were workers who destroyed
the machines in their protest against unemployment and were
severely punished by the ruling class in England. The poet's great
sympathy for the workers in their struggle against the capitalists is
dearly shown.
• (B) Comprehension notes
• (a) This short poem contains three five-lined stanzas of anapestic
movement. The lines are of irregular lengths. The rimes in each
stanza are abba.
• (b) "Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood": The word
"cheaply" here is used ironically, meaning dearly.
• (e) The phrase "tree of liberty" is used metaphorically, referring to
the democratic movement of the working people fighting for their
own freedom and liberation that will develop prosperously like a
growing tree.
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When We Two Parted（《昔日依依别》）
When we two parted 昔日依依惜别，
In silence and tears， 泪流默默无言；
Half broken-hearted 离恨肝肠断，
To serve for years， 此别又几年。
Pale grew thy cheek and cold， 冷颊向愕然，
Colder thy kiss， 一吻寒更添；
Truly that hour foretold 日后伤心事，
Sorrow to this！ 此刻已预言。
The dew of the morning 朝起寒露重，
Suck chill on my brow 凛冽凝眉间———
It felt like the warning 彼时已预告：
Of what I feel now． 悲伤在今天。
Thy vows are all broken， 山盟今安在？
And light is thy fame； 汝名何轻贱！
I hear thy name spoken， 吾闻汝名传，
And share in its shame． 羞愧在人前。
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They name thee before me， 闻汝名声恶，
A knell to mine ear； 犹如听丧钟。
A shudder comes o'er me 不禁心怵惕———
Why wert thou so dear？ 往昔情太浓。
Thy know what I knew thee 谁知旧日情，
who knew thee too well： 斯人知太深。
Long，Long shall I rue thee 绵绵长怀恨，
Too deeply to tell． 尽在不言中。
In secret we met— 昔日喜幽会，
In silence I grieve 今朝恨无声。
That thy heart could forget， 旧情汝已忘，
Thy spirit deceive． 痴心遇薄幸。
If I should meet thee 多年惜别后，
After long years， 抑或再相逢，
How should I greet thee ？ 相逢何所语？
With silence and tears． 泪流默无声。
陈锡麟译，孙梁校
• Byronic hero
• The Byronic hero presents an idealised, but flawed
character whose attributes include: great talent; great
passion; a distaste for society and social institutions; a
lack of respect for rank and privilege; being thwarted in
love by social constraint or death; rebellion; exile; an
unsavory secret past; arrogance; overconfidence or lack
of foresight; and, ultimately, a self-destructive manner.
• Byron himself is considered to epitomize many of the
characteristics of this literary figure.
• Scholars have traced the literary history of the Byronic
hero from John Milton, and many authors and artists of
the Romantic movement show Byron's influence during
the 19th century and beyond, including Charlotte and
Emily Brontë.
THE ISLES OF GREECE.
• The isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece!
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Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
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Where grew the arts of war and peace,
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Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
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Eternal summer gilds them yet,
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But all, except their sun, is set.
• The Scian and the Teian muse,
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The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
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Have found the fame your shores refuse;
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Their place of birth alone is mute
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To sounds which echo further west
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Than your sires' 'Islands of the Blest.'
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The mountains look on Marathon•
And Marathon looks on the sea;
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And musing there an hour alone,
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I dream'd that Greece might still be free;
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For standing on the Persians' grave,
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I could not deem myself a slave.
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A king sate on the rocky brow
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Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis;
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And ships, by thousands, lay below,
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And men in nations;- all were his!
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He counted them at break of day•
And when the sun set where were they?
• And where are they? and where art thou,
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My country? On thy voiceless shore
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The heroic lay is tuneless now•
The heroic bosom beats no more!
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And must thy lyre, so long divine,
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Degenerate into hands like mine?
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'T is something, in the dearth of fame,
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Though link'd among a fetter'd race,
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To feel at least a patriot's shame,
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Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
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For what is left the poet here?
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For Greeks a blush- for Greece a tear.
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• Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
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Must we but blush?- Our fathers bled.
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Earth! render back from out thy breast
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A remnant of our Spartan dead!
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Of the three hundred grant but three,
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To make a new Thermopylae!
• What, silent still? and silent all?
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Ah! no;- the voices of the dead
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Sound like a distant torrent's fall,
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And answer, 'Let one living head,
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But one arise,- we come, we come!'
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'T is but the living who are dumb.
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In vain- in vain: strike other chords;
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Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
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Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
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And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
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Hark! rising to the ignoble call•
How answers each bold Bacchanal!
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You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
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Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
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Of two such lessons, why forget
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The nobler and the manlier one?
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You have the letters Cadmus gave•
Think ye he meant them for a slave?
• Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
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We will not think of themes like these!
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It made Anacreon's song divine:
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He served- but served Polycrates•
A tyrant; but our masters then
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Were still, at least, our countrymen.
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The tyrant of the Chersonese
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Was freedom's best and bravest friend;
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That tyrant was Miltiades!
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Oh! that the present hour would lend
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Another despot of the kind!
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Such chains as his were sure to bind.
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Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
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On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,
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Exists the remnant of a line
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Such as the Doric mothers bore;
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And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
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The Heracleidan blood might own.
• Trust not for freedom to the Franks•
They have a king who buys and sells;
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In native swords, and native ranks,
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The only hope of courage dwells;
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But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,
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Would break your shield, however broad.
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Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
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Our virgins dance beneath the shade•
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
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But gazing on each glowing maid,
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My own the burning tear-drop laves,
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To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
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Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,
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Where nothing, save the waves and I,
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May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
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There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
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A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine•
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
• (2) "The Isles of Greece" (from Don Juan, III)
• (A) Main idea
• "The Isles of Greece", taken from Canto III of
Don Juan, is among Byron's most effective
poetical utterances on national freedom. All the
16 stanzas that constitute the song are
supposed to have been sung by a Greek singer
at the wedding feast of Don Juan and Haidee on
an isle of Greece. In the song, by contrasting the
freedom enjoyed by the ancient Greeks with the
enslavement of the early 19th-century Greeks
under Turkish rule, the poet calls on the Greeks
to struggle for their national liberation.
• (B) Comprehension notes
• (a) This song, included in the third canto of Byron's Dun Juan, is
different from the rest of the poem metrically, consisting of sixteen
six-lined stanzas of iambic tetrameter, with a rhyme scheme of
ababcc.
• (b) "But all, except their sure, is set": But all their past glories are no
more, only the sun still shines upon them.
• (c) "The Scian and the Teian muse": referring to Homer and
Anacreon. "Muse" here means poet. "Scian"--of Scio or Chios in the
Grecian Arehipitage, claimed to have been the birthplace of Homer.
"Teian"--of Teos in ancient Ionia, where the poet Anacreon was born.
• (d) "Have found the fame your shores refuse": have elsewhere
received the honour which Greece itself failed to give.
• (e) "And, when the sun set, where were they?" Here it refers to the
destruction of all the Persian ships at the naval baste of Salamis.
• (f) "For what is left a poet here?": What is left for a poet to do here?
• (g) "Strike other chords" means to play some other musical
composition: here it implies to "deal with other themes".
• (h) "Trust not for freedom to the Franks— / They have a king who
buys and sells": Do not depend on foreign countries to obtain
freedom for you (i. e. the Greeks), their have eking who buys and
sells the interests of others for his own profit ("the Frank" normally
refers to France, but here obviously refers to western European
countries in general).
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She walks in beauty
SHE walks in beauty, like the night，
Of cloudless climes and starry skies；
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes：
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
• One shade the more, one ray the less,
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Had half impair'd the nameless grace
• Which waves in every raven tress，
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Or softly lightens o'er her face,
• Where thoughts serenely sweet express
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How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
• And on that cheek and o'er that brow
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So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
• The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
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But tell of days in goodness spent,—
• A mind at peace with all below,
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A heart whose love is innocent！
• She Walks in Beauty
• Background
• On the evening of June 11, 1814, Byron attended a party with his
friend, James Wedderburn Webster, at the London home of Lady
Sarah Caroline Sitwell. Among the other guests was the beautiful
Mrs. Anne Beatrix Wilmot, the wife of Byron’s first cousin, Sir Robert
Wilmot. Her exquisite good looks dazzled Byron and inspired him to
write “She Walks in Beauty.” (In 1823, Wilmot inherited the estate of
his wife’s father, Eusebius Horton. In accordance with the will, Sir
Robert assumed the additional surname Horton. Thereafter, he was
known as Robert Wilmot-Horton and his wife as Anne WilmotHorton.)
• Theme
• The theme of the poem is the woman's exceptional beauty, internal
as well as external. The first stanza praises her physical beauty. The
second and third stanzas praise both her physical and spiritual, or
intellectual, beauty.
• Rhyme Scheme and Meter
• The rhyme scheme of the first stanza is ababab; the
second stanza, cdcdcd; and the third stanza, efefef. All
the end rhymes are masculine. The meter is
predominantly iambic tetrameter, a pattern in which a
line has four pairs of unstressed and stressed
syllables—eight syllables in all. The first two lines
demonstrate the pattern followed throughout the poem
except for line 6, which has nine syllables:
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1................2........... 3...............4
• She WALKS | in BEAU | ty, LIKE | the NIGHT
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1.................2................. 3...............4
• Of CLOUD | less CLIMES | and STAR | ry SKIES
• Enjambment
• Lines 1 and 2 contain enjambment (carrying the sense of
one line of verse over to the next line without a pause).
Thus, there is no pause after night. Pauses occur at the
end of the other lines.
• Use of Alliteration
• Alliteration occurs frequently to enhance the appeal of
the poem to the ear. The most obvious examples of this
figure of speech include the following:
• Line 2:....cloudless climes; starry skies.
• Line 6:....day denies
• Line 8:....Had half
• Line 9:....Which waves
• Line 11...serenely sweet
• Line 14...So soft, so
• Line 18...Heart Whose
• Other Figures of Speech
• Examples of other figures of speech are the following:
• Lines 1, 2:......Simile comparing the movement of the
beautiful woman to the movement of the skies
• Line 6:............Metonymy, in which heaven is substituted
for God or for the upper atmosphere
• Lines 8-10:......Metaphor comparing grace, a quality, to a
perceivable phenomenon
• Lines 11-12:....Metaphor and personification comparing
thoughts to people; metaphor and personification
comparing the mind to a home (dwelling-place)
• Lines 13-16:....Metaphor and personification comparing
the woman's cheek and brow to persons who tell of days
in goodness spent
• Imagery: Light and Darkness
• Byron presents an ethereal portrait of the young woman in the first
two stanzas by contrasting white with black and light with shadow in
the same way that nature presents a portrait of the firmament—and
the landscape below—on a cloudless starlit evening. He tells the
reader in line 3 that she combines “the best of dark and bright”
(bright here serving as an noun rather than an adjective) and notes
that darkness and light temper each other when they meet in her
raven hair. Byron's words thus turn opposites into compeers working
together to celebrate beauty.
• Study Questions and Writing Topics
• 1.What is beauty? To what extent does beauty depend on
personality?
• 2.Was Byron declaring his love for the young woman or simply
celebrating her beauty?
• 3.Write a poem about a quality—strength, generosity, kindness,
beauty, charm, selflessness, etc.
• 4.Write an essay that analyzes another poem by Byron.
• Sonnet on Chillon
• Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,
For there thy habitation is the heart –
• The heart which love of thee alone can bind;
• And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd –
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To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,
Their country conquers with their martyrdom,
• And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.
• Chillon! thy prison is a holy place，
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And thy sad floor an altar -- for 'twas trod,
• Until his very steps have left a trace
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Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
• By Bonnivard! -- May none those marks efface!
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For they appeal from tyranny to God.
• 锡雍古堡之歌
• 不羁的心，不朽魂！
身陷囹圄，光茫万丈，你这自由之神！
你用爱把人心维系，
你在人们心底扎根；
潮湿的牢房暗无天日，
你的儿女镣铐加身；
烈士的牺牲换来祖国的解放，
自由的强音唤醒世人。
锡雍啊，你凄惨的底层是设祭的神坛，
你的牢房是圣地供人朝谨；
你阴湿的砖石一如草地，
他用双脚踩踏，留下印痕；
愿邦尼瓦德的脚印永不磨灭，
那是为驱除暴政在祈求上帝怜悯。