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LORD BYRON George Gordon Byron was a young charismatic talented libertine poet > he was the archetype of a romantic poet → he traveled across the Mediterranean having affairs with both men and women, often married (causing scandals in England) ↪He was a decadent bohemian aristocrat living a scandalous life even as he produced some of the greatest poems that the world will ever know The limping devil Lord Byron lived with the constant fear of going mad probably because of his parents ↓ George Gordon Byron was born on the 22nd of January 1788 ● His father was a drunk who gambled all of his wife’s money away before fleeing abroad while she was pregnant ● Byron’s mother, Catherine Gordon, gave birth alone she was also a very dysfunctional parent, swinging between too much love and too much cruelty (she would make fun of him because of a problem he had with his right leg, calling him Lame Brat and Limping Devil) ↓ he began to match his mother cruelty 1791 – Byron’s father died in France and passed all his debts to his 3 years old son 1797 – his mother hired a strict Calvinist, Mary Gray, as his son’s nurse ↓ she verbally, physically, and sexually (when he was 9 or 10) abused him Boys and Bards 21st of May 1798 – Byron’s uncle died, and he inherited his aristocratic title and his mansion, Newstead Abbey → he had to rent it out to pay his debts, but it was still a positive thing for him 1801 – he was sent away to study at Harrow, an elite boarding school where he got bullied for his disability and weight (so he developed an eating disorder) 1805 – he entered Cambridge, at that time he already knew he was bisexual ↓ his first love was John Edelston, a choir boy who was unfortunately straight (this will be a common pattern for Byron) 1806 – he made his name in a literary cat fight ↓ he had run out of money, so he borrowed money from his half-sister Augusta in London and there he began compiling his early poems and publishing them in 1807 with the title “Hours of idleness”, which the critic didn’t appreciate ⤵ 1808/9 – he responded with what basically was a diss track: “English Bards and Scotch reviews”, attacking the Edinburgh review and many English poets The Grand Tour Summer of 1809 – Byron and his friend Jhon Hobhouse travelled around the Mediterranean, where Byron lived his truth by having many love stories with countless young boys (the Mediterranean societies were much more open to homosexuality than England) During his Grand Tour he began to think about a bigger work: “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”, which became a pillar of European romanticism → following a world-weary narrator on his Mediterranean travels it was utterly ahead of its time (it was so cutting edge that Byron didn’t want to publish it because of the scandal it would have caused) 1811 – Byron returned to England because his mother was very ill, but as he got there she was already dead ↓ despite their difficult relationship, this nearly broke Byron, who first went to isolation and then on a violent spree of seduction forcing himself on the abbey serving girls → his friends made him threw himself into writing March 1812 – the release of the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was the biggest literary event of the regency era → it went sold out in 3 days and he became extremely famous (everyone was obsessed with him) Spring of 1812 – he only had eyes for Lady Caroline Lamb, but it didn’t go very well Walking in Beauty In later life Byron would recall the years 1812 to 1815 as his prime years but it was then that he had his most dangerous relationships with women ↓ for example Lady Caroline Lamb, with whom he had a great love story at the beginning which made them both go crazy by the end (he broke it off with a letter at the end of 1812) His next lover was Annabella Milbank (Lamb’s cousin) → they started with a friendly correspondence and at one point Byron asked her to marry him (probably to deflect suspicion about his gay affairs or his affairs with his half-sister) but she turned him down 1814 – she changed her mind and they got married in January 1815, but it was clear that it wasn’t a great match His third love of that period was Augusta, his half-sister, who he met again in 1813 10 December 1815 – Annabella gave birth to their daughter, Ada Byron, at a point where their marriage was unrepairable (he was very violent) → Annabella and Ada flee the country a month later ↓ Rumors about Byron being violent began spreading and Caroline Lamb contributed with her own stories of incest and homosexual relationship Byron had had → the English society rejected him Escape to the continent When the accusations of incest homosexuality and sodomy broke against Byron, he transformed overnight into a walking target so, on April 25 th of 1816, he boarded a ship to Europe (that would be the last time Byron saw his home country) During this exile Byron began working harder than ever and in Geneva he made his most important artistic friendship with Percy and Mary Shelley (it was him who suggested to tell ghost stories, leading to the writing of Frankenstein)
