Althouse: "Of the so-called Big Six Romantics, he’s the hardest to place. The hikers and the introverts read Wordsworth..."

April 20, 2024

"Of the so-called Big Six Romantics, he’s the hardest to place. The hikers and the introverts read Wordsworth..."

"... the hippies love Blake, Keats is for the purists, Shelley for the political dreamers … and Byron? In spite of his fame, he lacks brand recognition. That’s partly because, halfway through his career, he decided to change the brand. 'If I am sincere with myself,' he once wrote, '(but I fear one lies more to one’s self than to any one else), every page should confute, refute and utterly abjure its predecessor.'"

From "Lord Byron Was Hard to Pin Down. That’s What Made Him Great. Two hundred years after his death, this Romantic poet is still worth reading" (WaP0).

31 comments:

rrsafety said...: I don’t know if you listen to the Rest is History podcast, but they just started a multi part series on Lord Byron. I did not know much about him and it is fascinating, and I really like the poetry as well. They should make a movie of Byron, Timothee Chalamet would be perfect as Byron.; 4/20/24, 9:28 AM
Robert Marshall said...: Wait a second, WaPo! Isn't he a dead white guy? So how can he be still worth reading? I'm so confused!; 4/20/24, 9:29 AM
ronetc said...: Wordsworth is a great example of "if not liberal when you are young, you have no heart; if not a conservative when old,you have no head." All anyone remembers is his romantic liberal youth and support of the French Revolution, but he became a Tory spokesman influenced by Edmund Burke. Is a mystery why all anyone remembers is what he was and not what he became.; 4/20/24, 9:33 AM
mezzrow said...: If you haven't been following The Rest Is History's multi-part review of our famous subject, just go. Their conclusion to date seems to be that "Byromania" marked the first occurrence of rock-star level admiration and fame from all the right sort of folks in Regency England.

With a gift with words, almost unbelievable good looks, a desire to obliterate boundaries, and generations of rakes and bounders in his hereditary male line, Byron was totally the product of his environment. After listening to this, I garnered a fully increased reserve of sympathy for the repressive characteristics of the Victorian age.

YMMV. Recommended. Their recent series on Luther has also been pretty much can't miss stuff.

Lord Byron: Mad, Bad & Dangerous To Know | Part 1; 4/20/24, 9:34 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him fight for the corrupt doing favors;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
And get taxed out the ass for his labors.
To do good for NATO is the secretive plan,
And is always deplorably requited;
Then fight for freedom in fucking Ukraine!
And, if not shot or blown up, you’ll be spited.

- RideSpaceByron; 4/20/24, 9:39 AM
Kate said...: "We are living through a great age for poetry." -- Anne Elliot, Persuasion

That line always hits me. Imagine being alive when all of these poets were publishing new work.; 4/20/24, 9:39 AM
William said...: He's probably more fun to read about than to read, but of all the Romantics, he's the most deserving of cancellation. He was a big deal in his era and for several generations after his death, but there is much about him that was grotesquely self indulgent and narcissistic. He dabbled in pedophilia. I think he's the one who made famous the tortured poet persona, but in our society that position is now held by songwriters rather than literary types. Taylor Swift is a much better role model for young women than Lord Byron.; 4/20/24, 9:45 AM
Joe Smith said...: Do they even teach that old white shit in college anymore?

They should be teaching about some black lesbian hip-hop poet that hates America.

Thats poetry...; 4/20/24, 9:49 AM
Yancey Ward said...: I love them all and have read and reread all of their work more than twice at a minimum over the last 40 years.; 4/20/24, 10:20 AM
rhhardin said...: Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass / The bard who soars to elegize an ass; 4/20/24, 10:22 AM
Mary Beth said...: I had a cat named Lord Byron.; 4/20/24, 10:40 AM
Oligonicella said...: They're all worth reading. Just don't ascribe to them any more insight and importance than you would to most anyone else.; 4/20/24, 10:49 AM
Kay said...: Lots of people believe Byron may have been the inspiration for stoker’s dracula.; 4/20/24, 10:53 AM
Tina Trent said...: No Mary? No Brownings? No Rosetti? No Tennyson? I admit I couldn't see past the paywall, but geez.

What pathetic amateurs.

Byron was the most famous of his generation. Roger yer aunt and spike heroin. Is there anything the least bit true in this article?

And Wordsworth was the Al Gore of the Romantics.; 4/20/24, 11:22 AM
Grant said...: I wonder why they left out Coleridge. He's the only one I've read at all recently (40 years after majoring in English lit). It's Shelley I would give up in a heartbeat. At any rate Byron had the best sense of humor and the widest range of them all.; 4/20/24, 11:37 AM
rhhardin said...: I wonder why they left out Coleridge

Coleridge mocked "moral discoveries."; 4/20/24, 12:19 PM
Roadkill711 said...: I just finished reading an historical novel recounting the ill-fated cruise of the British warship ‘Wager’ in 1740. The ship foundered off the southwestern coast of what is now Chile, and while most of the scurvy-afflicted crew survived the shipwreck, subsequent events including mutiny, murder, and a precarious journey in small boats back to Brazil winnowed the surviving crew to about 30 starving men. The Captain and a few loyal officers, who were left behind and marooned by the mutineers, managed to survive and work their way up the western coast of Chile to civilization.

One of the surviving officers was 16 year old Midshipman John Byron, who went on to a highly successful Royal Navy career. He married and was the grandfather of Lord Byron, the poet.; 4/20/24, 12:39 PM
J L Oliver said...: Coleridge is for acid heads. Byron was the pop star of his age with naughty, naughty rumors. Who follows these things?; 4/20/24, 12:53 PM
Mikey NTH said...: "Byronic" is a descriptive that has fsllen out of use.; 4/20/24, 12:55 PM
Mikey NTH said...: Once I memorized "The Destruction of Sennacherib" for school.
The Assyrian came down like the wof on the fold
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold
And the sheen of his spears like the stars on the sea
Where the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.; 4/20/24, 1:07 PM
Mea Sententia said...: There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar.; 4/20/24, 1:25 PM
Eva Marie said...: “Isn't he a dead white guy? So how can he be still worth reading?”
He had sex with little boys. That must have been a point in his favor.
No thanks.; 4/20/24, 1:58 PM
Joe Smith said...: 'There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,'

There once was a girl from Nantucket...; 4/20/24, 2:06 PM
Assistant Village Idiot said...: A heartless, perhaps even sociopathic womaniser, now read primarily by women. I wonder how he would fare today?; 4/20/24, 3:08 PM
Narr said...: They were all mere forerunners of The Great MacGonegall.; 4/20/24, 4:44 PM
The Godfather said...: @Roadkill711 -- Thanks for the reference to the "Wager" book. I just ordered it. If I like it: THANKS! If not, THANKS ANYWAY!; 4/20/24, 5:00 PM
Hey Skipper said...: Roadkill and Mezzrow: Thank you for the recommendations.; 4/20/24, 5:50 PM
Lyle Sanford, RMT said...: Back in college I never really connected with his poetry, but he kept a diary of a trip through the Alps and it struck me as amazingly direct and "modern' in tone.; 4/20/24, 5:54 PM
Nancy Reyes said...: Byron harmed many of the women he seduced, but never mind. He was the original bad boy they loved to love. And he tried to make up for his sins by becoming a SJW: Helping the Greeks gain independence.

The irony? One of the children he fathered but neglected was the mother of the computer, Ada Lovelace.

Sort of similar to how Shelley, another bad boy who harmed women he claimed to love. Few nowadays can quote any of his poems, but everyone knows his wife, who wrote Frankenstein.; 4/20/24, 7:31 PM
mccullough said...: Don Juan rollicks.

Tyrone Power’s reading of Canto One of Don Juan entertains.

Power would flourish as a podcaster; 4/20/24, 10:55 PM
Josephbleau said...: My favorite stanza of poetry:

Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.; 4/21/24, 7:51 PM