Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet and peer.[1][2] He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement,[3][4][5] and is regarded as being among the greatest of English poets.[6] Among his best-known works are the lengthy narratives Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; much of his shorter lyrics in Hebrew Melodies also became popular.
"Byron" and "George Byron" redirect here. For other uses, see Byron (disambiguation) and George Byron (disambiguation).
The Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron
22 January 1788
London, England
19 April 1824 (aged 36)
Missolonghi, Aetolia, Ottoman Empire (present-day Aetolia-Acarnania, Greece)
Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Hucknall, Nottinghamshire
- Poet
- politician
- John Byron (father)
- Catherine Gordon (mother)
Byron was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, before he travelled extensively in Europe. He lived for seven years in Italy, in Venice, Ravenna, and Pisa after he was forced to flee England due to threats of lynching.[7] During his stay in Italy, he would frequently visit his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.[8] Later in life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence to fight the Ottoman Empire, for which Greeks revere him as a folk hero.[9] He died leading a campaign in 1824, at the age of 36, from a fever contracted after the first and second sieges of Missolonghi.
His one child conceived within marriage, Ada Lovelace, was a founding figure in the field of computer programming based on her notes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine.[10][11][12] Byron's extramarital children include Allegra Byron, who died in childhood, and possibly Elizabeth Medora Leigh, daughter of his half-sister Augusta Leigh.
Political career[edit]
Byron first took his seat in the House of Lords on 13 March 1809[160] but left London on 11 June 1809 for the Continent.[161] Byron's association with the Holland House Whigs provided him with a discourse of liberty rooted in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.[162] A strong advocate of social reform, he received particular praise as one of the few Parliamentary defenders of the Luddites: specifically, he was against a death penalty for Luddite "frame breakers" in Nottinghamshire, who destroyed textile machines that were putting them out of work. His first speech before the Lords, on 27 February 1812, was loaded with sarcastic references to the "benefits" of automation, which he saw as producing inferior material as well as putting people out of work, and concluded the proposed law was only missing two things to be effective: "Twelve Butchers for a Jury and a Jeffries for a Judge!". Byron's speech was officially recorded and printed in Hansard.[163] He said later that he "spoke very violent sentences with a sort of modest impudence" and thought he came across as "a bit theatrical".[164] The full text of the speech, which he had previously written out, was presented to Dallas in manuscript form and he quotes it in his work.[165]
Two months later, in conjunction with the other Whigs, Byron made another impassioned speech before the House of Lords in support of Catholic emancipation.[166] [167]Byron expressed opposition to the established religion because it was unfair to people of other faiths.[168]
These experiences inspired Byron to write political poems such as Song for the Luddites (1816) and The Landlords' Interest, Canto XIV of The Age of Bronze.[169]
Examples of poems in which he attacked his political opponents include Wellington: The Best of the Cut-Throats (1819) and The Intellectual Eunuch Castlereagh (1818).[170]
