1788 – 1824

• 6th Baron Byron; endured a father who abandoned him, a schizophrenic mother and a nurse who abused him.

January 22, 1788 (date of birth)

• inherited the title of his great-uncle, William Byron.

1798, officially recognized as Lord Byron

• Upon turning 21, Byron took his seat in the House of Lords

• A tour through the Mediterranean Sea, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"

1808, "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers"

• Death of his mother

• Overcame depression: high praise by London society & a series of love affairs

• Resulting into: “The Giaour“, "The Bride of Abydos" and "The Corsair“.

July 1811, return to London

• Married in January 1815-> Ada Lovelace-> divorced Jan 1816

September 1814, proposal to Anne Isabelle Milbanke

• Geneva, Switzerland - befriended Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary and her stepsister, Claire Clairmont (with whom he had another daughter, Allegra)

• Wrote the third canto to “Childe Harold”: Belgium, Rhine, Switzerland

April 1816, left England, never to return

• Portrayed experiences in his greatest poem, “Don Juan”

• 1821-1822 – edited the society’s short-lived newspaper, The Liberal

October 1816, sailed for Italy

• “a country of the most picturesque beauty”

Later, arrived in Albania – Ali Pasha’s court

• Invested in the Greek naval fleet

• February 15, 1824, he fell ill

1823, support Greek Independence

• Clergy refused to bury him at Westminister Abbey; family vault near Newstead.

• 1969, a memorial was placed in Westminister Abbey.

April 19, 1824 - death

intensely personal, usually filled with autobiographical references

coupled with a sense of the larger world's political, moral, historical, or even natural situation

his extensive self-reference in his works is that Byron was concerned to leave his legacy in the poetic world

Another theme of his poetry is love.

Byron looked upon love as free but unattainable in the ideal, an idea springing from his own multitude of affairs and ultimate lack of happiness in any of them.

III. Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a roving By the light of the moon.

II. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest.

I. So, we’ll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.

Remained unpublished until six years after his death.

three stanzas with four lines each, with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD AEAE.

gets tired of repetition – roving, wandering, messing around – and looking to spend the remaining time doing more fulfilling things

The themes:

Death, or rather the fear of not living fully before death comes

love – love for the night itself, and love for the night as a time for loving people

dissatisfaction from roving

Symbols: moon, swords, sheath, etc.

I. The poem opens with the first stanza in which the speaker introduces his desire to stop roving, even though he/she is as energetic as ever

II. . The speaker continues to explain in the second stanza that the reason behind his/hers decision is tiredness and the need to take a rest from passion and obsession.

III. The poem is concluded by summing up the decision of the speaker and the firmness in it – no matter what temptations may appear in the way.