Lord_Byron1.doc

Lord George Gorden Byron (1788—1824) 拜伦
Important Points
n 1. Byron’s literary works.
n 2. Byron’s masterpiece, Don Juan《唐璜》and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage《恰尔德·哈罗尔德游记》
n 3. Comments on Byron.
n 拜伦（1788—1824）是如暴风一般轰响在19世纪初叶英国诗坛上的巨擘。他被歌德誉为“19世纪最富天才的诗人”，普希金奉他为“思想界的君王”。
George Gordon Byron (1788 –1824)
l The most renowned English-language poet of his day. His best-known works are the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. The latter remained incomplete on his death. A poem spanning 17 cantos, Don Juan, ranks as one of the most important long poems published in England since Milton's Paradise Lost.
l Byron's fame rests not only on his writings, but also on his life, which featured extravagant living, numerous love affairs, debts, separation, allegations of incest and bisexuality and an eventual death from fever after he travelled to fight on the Greek side in the Greek War of Independence. He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know."
Literary Works
l 1) Hours of Idleness 《闲暇时刻》《消闲时光》dealing with childish recollections and early friendship, showing the influence of 18th century traditions
l 2) The English Bards and Scott Reviewers 《英国诗人和苏格兰评论家》
1807年 处女诗集《懒散的时刻》
1809—1811年间 游历葡萄牙、西班牙、马耳他、希腊、土耳其等国家，写成《恰尔德·哈洛尔德游记》一、二两章（三、四章是后来写的，完成于1817年）
n Child Harold’s Pilgrimage 《恰尔德·哈罗德游记》, the first two canto.
“I awoke one morning to find myself famous.”“我一天早晨醒来,发现自己出了名。”
“Oriental Tales“东方叙事诗”
The Giaour 《异教徒》
The Bride of Abydos 《阿比多斯的新娘》
Lara 《莱拉》
The Corsair 《海盗》
Parisina 《帕日西纳》
The Siege of Corinth 《攻克考日斯》
“Byronic heroes”“拜伦式英雄”
fiery passions; unbending will ideal of freedom against tyranny and injustice lone fighters, individualistic ends
Byronic Hero.
Byron introduced into English poetry a new style of character, which as often been referred to as “Byronic Hero” of “satanic spirit”. People imagined that they saw something of Byron himself in these strange figures of rebels, pirates, and desperate adventurers.
Byronic heroes—A kind of hero found in several of the works of Lord Byron. Like Byron himself, a Byronic hero is a melancholy and rebellious young man, distressed by a terrible wrong he committed in the past
Byronic hero
• A theme that pervades much of Byron's work is that of the Byronic hero, an idealized but flawed character whose attributes include:
1) being a rebel; 2) having a distaste for social institutions; 3) being an exile; 4) expressing a lack of respect for rank and privilege; 5) having great talent; 6) hiding an unsavoury past; 7) being highly passionate; 8) ultimately, being self-destructive
• Byron's influence was manifested by many authors and artists of the Romantic movement during the 19th century and beyond. An example of such a hero is Heathcliff from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights.
拜伦式英雄
是拜伦笔下的一类人物形象，最早萌芽于《恰尔德·哈洛尔德》。在《东方叙事诗》中重点塑造了这类形象，他们是悲剧性的孤傲的反抗社会制度的叛逆者，是高傲而倔强，忧郁而孤独，神秘而痛苦，与社会格格不入从而对之进行彻底反抗的叛逆者——烫烙着拜伦思想个性气质的深刻印记。
Literary Works
n Hebrew Melodies《西伯来歌曲》lyrical piece
Literary Works in Switzerland
l Sonnet on Chillon《锡隆十四行诗》Swiss revolutionary Bonnivard 庞瓦尼
l The Prisoner of Chillon《锡隆的囚徒》a narrative poem
l Manfred 《曼弗雷德》a poetical drama（诗剧）
Literary Works in Italy
p Accomplishment of Childe Harold
p Don Juan 《唐璜》masterpiece
p Cain 《该隐》a poetical drama诗剧
p The Prophecy of Dante 《但丁预言》
p The Vision of Judgment 《审判的幻景》
a satire parodying (imitating) Southey’s sycophant (flattery) elegy A Vision of Judgment.
语言生动，内容超俗,主题鲜明,充分体现了幻境与现实相结合的原则。
Another version to answer Southey’s attack.
The Main Idea of Harold
1. Portugal and Spain the delicious land, the poverty of the poor and the struggle of the Spaniards against the foreign aggression,
2. Albania and Greece the fallen state of fair Greece; remind of the heroic past, strive for the liberty
3. The venom恶毒的话 and spite怨恨 of the high society；condemns the reaction glorifies the French Revolution
4. Sings of Italy and its people; exposure the reactionary rulers; ardent love of liberty and firm belief in the people’s final triumph
《恰尔德·哈洛尔德游记》
长诗中有两个主人公：
（1）哈洛尔德——孤独、忧郁、悲观的所谓“拜伦式的英雄”
（2）抒情主人公“我”——目光犀利的观察家、批评家、热爱生活、善于斗争的民主战士
Don Juan 《唐璜》
o It was written in Italy during the years from 1818 to 1823.
o It has 16,000 lines in 16 cantos and witten in ottava rima （八行体）.
o Each stanza contains 8 iambic pentameter lines.
o The rhyme scheme is abababcc
八行体：每行10或11个音节，前6行交替押韵，后2行成一组同脚韵。
Comments on Don Juan
l 1.The story of the poem takes place in the later part of the 18th century.
l 2.Don Juan is a Spanish youth of aristocratic birth.
l 3.This long poem describes Don Juan’s vicissitudes(变迁) of life and adventures in many countries.
l 4.The hero is made to participate in different historical events.
Thus we can get a broad panorama（全景） of the social life of the time.
n 5.The poem gives a satirical description of English ruling classes and social conditions.
n 6.The hero shows his disgust at the vanity（虚荣） and hypocrisy（虚伪）of English high society.
n 7.Byron did not finish the poem.
n He meant to make the hero take part in the French Revolution and die a heroic death.
n 8.Jon Juan is the great poem of the age.
《堂璜》的思想内容：
一．对18世纪末以及19世纪初“各国社会的可笑方面”进行讽刺
1．通过主人公的冒险足迹，揭示出时代特征：封建专制的暴虐和社会道德的虚伪
2．讽刺英国社会的各个方面
3．讽刺不合理的婚姻以及上流社会夫妇之间的互相欺骗现象
二．充满对正义事物的爱，对失去自由的人的同情和对被压迫者的战斗号召
三．对生与死等诸多问题的哲理性思考
Comments on Byron
n 1)Byron is one of the most excellent representatives of English Romanticism and one of the most influential poets of the time.
n 2)His literary career was closely linked with the struggle and progressive movements of his age.
n 3)He opposed oppression and slavery, and has an ardent (passionate) love for liberty.
n 4)He praised the people’s revolutionary struggles in his works.
n 5)His poems are favorites of the British workers and the laboring people of other countries.
n 6) Byron’s poems show energy and vigor, romantic daring (bold, brave) and powerful passion.
n 7) He stands with Shakespeare and Scott among the British writers who exert the greatest influence over the mainland Europe and the Chinese youth greatly.
• 8) But some critics think many of his lines are harsh (unkind), rugged (rough) and not rhythmical
Some poems show his individual heroism and pessimism.
She Walks in Beauty (analysis) She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
• The opening couplet is among the most memorable and most quoted lines in romantic poetry.
• They are effortless, graceful and beautiful, a fitting match for his poem about a woman who possesses effortless grace and beauty. They bring together the opposing qualities of darkness and light that are at play throughout the three verses.
• The first line is an enjambed line (it continues without pause onto the second line). That she walks in beauty like the night may not make sense, as night represents darkness. However, as the line continues, the night is a cloudless one with bright stars to create a beautiful mellow glow.
• The remaining lines of the first verse employ another set of enjambed lines that tell us that her face and eyes combine all that’s best of dark and bright.
The fourth line begins with an irregularity in the meter called a metrical substitution, for it starts with an accented syllable followed by an unaccented one, rather than the iambic meter of the other lines.
• The result is that the word ‘Meet’ receives attention, an emphasis. The lady’s unique feature is that opposites meet in her in a wonderful way.
• No mention is made here or elsewhere in the poem of any other physical features of the lady.
• The focus of the vision is upon the details of the lady’s face and eyes, which reflect the mellowed and tender light.
• She has a remarkable quality of being able to contain the opposites of dark and bright.
• The pairing of two rhyming sounds in each stanza works well because the poem concerns itself with the two forces --- darkness and light --- at work in the woman’s beauty, and also the two areas of her beauty—the internal and the external.
• The rhyming words, especially in the first stanza, have importance: notice how “night” rhymes with its opposites, “light” and “bright.”
• The poem uses images of light and darkness interacting to describe the wide spectrum of elements in a beautiful woman’s personality and looks.
• Lord Byron greatly admired his cousin’s serene qualities on that particular night and he has left us with an inspired poem.
• It starts off brilliantly; the first four lines are beautifully phrased. Also in evidence is the effortlessly perfect scansion that characterizes Byron's work.
• However, the latter two verses lose that quality of delicate beauty, and degenerate into a somewhat lifeless portrayal of a somewhat insipid set of traits. To be perfectly fair to Byron, it may just be that the poem has not aged well, but phrases like 'how pure, how dear' tend to jar, and the whole last verse has a 'pious' quality that borders on affectation.
When We Two Parted
• It tells the story of a couple that shared a secret relationship and is forced to separate for a period of time, and during this period, the person to whom the poem is directed to commits an act of indiscretion and the speaker is shamed and betrayed. If he should meet his beloved again, he will greet her with “silence and tears.”
• The poem is about Frances Webster, whom Byron didn’t seduce because she was a newlywed; but within a year it was reported she was having an affair with someone else, so Byron felt cheated.

• Although the publication date for this poem is 1808, Byron actually wrote it in 1813.  This was to keep the identity of the person a secret.
analysis
• Subject: looking back with regret at a broken relationship. It is aroused by the remembrance of their parting.
• Form: 4 octaves. All have very short lines, producing an effect of separation. Each two lines meant to be one – a severing. Punctuation gives even more expression of the lines being broken, and his heart being broken.
• Tone: doleful, slow and sad, melancholy, grieving, depressing. Obviously he hasn’t yet got over the loss of his love.
• His intention is to unbottle his feelings: to portray his grief, lingering sorrow, as well as anger at being treated so.

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