Byrons Poetry by Lord Byron

Byrons Poetry Reviews

• 
  Andreas

  Some of the poems were great,
  others were painful to get through.
  I dids't not think I'd finish this so late,
  were I to say else it'd be untrue.
  
  This is a poem I suppose
  or at least my attempt at one.
  Writing one sends me into throes,
  therefore now I am done.
• 
  Prakash Bisht

  Well they say "He was mad, bad and dangerous to know". I say the same you will love everything wrtten by him from short and beautiful "She walks in beauty" to epic "Don Juan". Just read it and love it.
• 
  Dana

  Byron's poems never fail to delight; I read this collection as part of a Late Romantic Literature course.
• 
  Jesse

  Well, that was a herculean effort. Read the complete poems of Byron in 10 months. I'm really glad I did, too. The works are so loaded with personal reflection, literary allusion, and contemporary references, that the only way to truly appreciate them is to read them in order, to get a feel for Byron's personal arc.
  
  Also, if I had just read the famous works, I would have read Childe Harolde, and Don Juan, both of which often meandered often, and never have read Oscar of Alba, which was the best story in the whole book.
• 
  Tiffany

  As with all NCAs, I enjoyed the criticisms in the back, and I always enjoy Byron's work. I wish this edition would have been longer or had not contained so many excerpts. I would rather evaluate fewer complete works. I have not checked out the newer edition of this text, and do not know if it will be an improvement or just a reprint. I will check that later.
• 
  John

  As with all Norton Anthologies, it is excellent for the selections of commentaries on the work. Byron may be the most readable of the Romantics, but he still presents difficulties. The annotations and the commentaries are helpful for the reading of the work.
• 
  Annaelle

  [décembre 2022]
  Stanzas to Augusta :
  VIII
  
  The winds might rend - the skies might pour,
  But there thou wert - and still wouldst be
  Devoted in the stormiest hour
  To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.
  
  ———
  
  
  J’ai bien aimé ce recueil même si pour tout saisir il est, je pense, nécessaire de faire des recherches sur la vie de l’auteur.
  Ça se lit bien en anglais étonnamment, je pensais avoir plus de difficultés que ça.
• 
  Cooper Renner

  I bought this primarily to read "The Giaour", "Prisoner of Chillon" and (maybe) some of what it contains of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (which I've read some of before). I've read already Byron's plays and "Don Juan" (except possibly the unfinished Canto XVII) and quite like them. Now that I've read "Giaour" and "Chillon", I can see them as far lesser works than the plays and "Don Juan", though they must have helped prepare Byron for those longer, more powerful accomplishments.
• 
  James

  Excellent, though strictly chronological, presentation of Byron's works, dividing his life up into four major periods. That means Childe Harold's Pilgrimage will be spread out across three sections with other poems and letters interspersed, making this volume excellent for chronological studies but a little awkward for other types of study. Good though of course necessarily limited selection of criticism at the end and very good notes. Recommended for a serious introduction to Byron.
• 
  Lo

  Love love love Byron. Dont' think I've read every single line in this very large book, but I've read all the biggies and most of the others. I suppose Childe Harold is my favorite. I love Byron's language, the exoticism, and the Byronic hero. He was also very influential, so this is required reading if you're into poetry.
• 
  Laura

  I had forgotten about all the fabulous "lost love" poems Byron wrote. The one where he goes to visit an old paramour who's now married with kids is especially poignant. He does the best poor pitiful I've ever read.
• 
  Colin

  I cannot help but love George Gordon.
• 
  Wryly

  Boy be talkin' smack! I sometimes fantasized about reading his poetry slam style. One of my classmate compared Don Juan to Ludacris's pimpin' all over the world.
• 
  Stacey

  Best poet in the English language!
• 
  Fiona

  I have this as a first edition and the smell of it is the best accompaniment to the reading.
• 
  Luna Nethera

  He's one of my favorite authors.
• 
  Keith

  My thoughts as I read sections of this:
  
  Manfred *** – When published in 1816, Byron’s Manfred was much admired (when, as with everything Byron did, it did not shock). But it’s a rather static piece of art. There is no action. Manfred goes from one place to another to complain how miserable his life is as an all-powerful magician/sorcerer/magi, cursed with immortality. (It must be tough.)
  
  There’s also no character development – at least not in the traditional sense. Manfred’s opinions about suicide vary. Defiance is probably his singular – and most appealing – trait.
  
  And what is the back story? We never know, though most people believe Manfred (a magician?) had a relationship (physical? spiritual?) with his sister(?), Astarte, in which they may have not known they were related(?), though she is described as the feminine version of him (his twin?). Oh, and Astarte died in some unknown way(?) for some unknown cause (?).
  
  I can confidently report that you won’t be better informed about any these things after finishing the play.
  
  The question is: Does Byron even know the answers to these questions? Does this all even make sense on any level? Even to him? Or is he just making things up as he goes. We don’t know. Even today.
  
  So, there is fuzziness to this work. It does contain some good descriptions of the human experience, and Manfred’s Faust-like Promethean defiance is sure to please the rebel-against-god in all of us. (Well, most of us. Some of us?)
  
  
• 
  Searchingthemeaningoflife Greece

  Λόρδος Βύρωνας | Ὁ ποιητὴς ξεχνᾶ τό παρὸν καὶ θυμᾶται τὸ ἔνδοξο παρελθὸν τῆς Ἑλλάδας
  
  Μὰ ἐνῶ σιμὰ σιμὰ στεκόμουν
  στὸν μεγαλόπρεπο ναό
  τῆς ᾿Αθηνᾶς, κι᾿ ὅπως χαιρόμουν
  ὄμορφη γῆς κι' ὠκεανό…
  Μόνος χωρὶς κανένα φίλο
  στὴν παραλία τὴ μαγικὴ
  ποὺ πλέον τὰ κατορθώματά της
  κι᾿ ἡ τέχνη της, σὲ ποιητικὴ
  μόνο θὰ βρίσκονται γραφή,
  κι᾿ ἐνῶ γυρνοῦσα τὸ κεφάλι
  γιὰ νὰ θαυμάσω τὸ τρανὸ
  μνημεῖο τῶν Θεῶν, ποὺ οἱ ἀνθρῶποι
  τόσο τὸ ἀτίμασαν θαρρῶ,
  Τὸ παρελθὸν ξαναγυρνοῦσε
  στὸ νοῦ μου. Κι᾿ ὅλο τὸ παρὸν
  ἐξαφανίζονταν. Κι᾿ ἐμπρός μου
  εἶδα τὴ δόξα τὴ παληὰ
  πάλι νὰ φτιάνει στὴν Ἑλλάδα
  τὴ λατρευτή της κατοικιά.
• 
  Cariad Jones

  OG sad boi. Didn’t exactly read this back to back, kind of flipped through and picked out some of the poems I liked. ���Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed from a Skull’ was my favourite in the collection.
• 
  Frank Ashe

  Read some, need to read much more
• 
  Sarah Ajs

  Excellent aperçu de l’œuvre de Byron.
• 
  Yousra

  Faves: Darkness, When We Two Parted & To a Lady
• 
  Amateur-Reader

  Poetically marvelous!!! In content & in style and in the range of different topics the poems let us delve in. Some are relatable to the contemporary issues we witness today.
• 
  J E Davis

  ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVORITES!
• 
  grace

  it definitely wasn't a bad collection; i liked the poems as a whole. this edition, however, was absolute shit. there were cantos from longer works of lord byron's that i just didn't understand and the poems were organized in a really weird way.
• 
  Michael

  It's almost not worth offering my opinions of Byron, now that I've finally read all of his poems. The great masterpieces are incomparable: Child Harold, the love lyrics, Manfred and Don Juan. Don Juan, in particular, is so full of life, thought and high feeling, that it seems to contain the whole world.
  
  Among the less well known works, a few really stood out to me. I think that "The Island" is the best of his tales—without wishing to spoil it, it's ending is unusual for Byron, and before Don Juan, it is probably the poem of his which had the greatest variety of character and action. "Beppo" was a little work of genius, basically a parody of the Turkish tales that made his name and the Italian plays that lost it. His little satire "The Blues" was a different thing altogether, sprightly and energetic and frothy, probably the only really comic thing he ever wrote, without the strong strain of world-weary fatalism that runs through so much else of his poetry.
  
  For me, his most distinctive quality is his sense of time. In these poems, time is like a creek running over a rock, continually babbling in careless beauty while it carves away at the surface, bearing everything away into the sea. Everything is lost and swept away in these poems, even the very grandest and most wonderful things. This sadness throws a pale and beautiful light on whatever of great and good appears in his poems. There is always the mixture of worldliness and ideals, of innocence and experience in his poems, and this is why Don Juan, with its innocent hero and wise narrator, is the best and most characteristic of his poems.
• 
  Drew

  Rarely has a book, read in such small doses, given me such pleasure. Matthew Arnold certainly pulled together a wonderful sampling of Byron's poetry. I've carried this tiny volume around the house and throughout Wales and London, sampling a poem here and there as I had time, often before bed. Almost every selection brought me joy and made me think. The samples pulled me out of time and place and let me simply enjoy the words and imagery. Well done, Lord Byron and Mr. Arnold.
  
  Some of the pieces stood out more than the others. The samples from Childe Harold: Solitude (p. 27) and Bereavement (p. 31). The excepts from the Prisoner of Chillon volume were great as well: The Dream (p. 35) and Bonnnivard and His Brothers (p. 119). The poem She Walks in Beauty (p. 46) was sublime. So simple, so short, yet so wonderful. I have a copy of Mazeppa and was happy to revisit "his ride" (p. 159). I'd never read any of Manfred, but after reading Act i, Scene 2 and Act ii, Scene 2, I've added it to my list of things to acquire and read. Likewise, Cain was new to me and I thoroughly enjoyed the excerpt "Cain and Adah" (p. 228). A great critique of original sin and how we react when we are burdened by the crimes of our parents. I definitely felt a sense of Milton in this piece, so I look forward to reading it in its entirety some day.
• 
  Brendan

  What is there to be said of Byron? My relationship with him is complex. I idolized him as a young teenager, and now while I still consider him a genius, I recognize the self-doubt, moodiness, and unevenness throughout his poetry. If a genius, then a lazy one, prone to expending talents and effort in vain dissipation, content to toss off derivative and forgettable epics; "The Giaour" and "The Corsair" despite all their contemporary gothic popularity, are cloying, trite works, rarely displaying a hint brilliance, I can barely stomach them. So much of his work is this way, uneven, cloying. But then, his shorter lyrics, his "Don Juan", certain Cantos of "Childe Harold", there are few works I hold higher.