| Title | : | Childe Harold's Pilgrimage |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1406800112 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781406800111 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 230 |
| Publication | : | First published April 1, 1812 |
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Reviews
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This is my favorite work by Lord Byron. Hands down. No contest. I revisit it often to read favorite sections.
Via the character of Childe Harold, and later simply as himself, Byron explores the world. He visits places like Spain, Turkey, and of course, Greece. He also muses on great historical figures like Napoleon. Think of this as the ultimate road trip epic, set via 19th Century Romanticism. Do you like movies like Easy Rider? This work is in the same vein.
The language is more accessible than Shakespeare. Still, I recommend picking up a well-footnoted edition, and keeping a dictionary handy. Often, Byron uses words differently than we do today. So it is worth referencing archaic definitions that add fascinating layers to the text.
Wish you could meet Byron and interact with him in person? Read this pilgrimage poem. -
WHAT I GOT FROM THIS BOOK
Apparently, privileged young people have always thought themselves so special they could not possibly fit into society, hence the pose of a distant critical observer, bored and disenchanted. They have always felt tortured by doing absolutely nothing, and when this terrible pain could be tolerated no longer, they took to traveling and blogging about it.
This was written in 1812 but honestly, I see it on Instagram every day.
WHAT I DIDN'T GET
Reading Childe Harold's Pilgrimage revealed my appalling lack of education. I didn't get most of the references and comparisons he made, including, but not limited to:
- places (Biscay, Tagus, Mafra, Guadiana, Corinth)
- people (Cava, Thrasybulus, Lochiel, Torquato)
- nationalities (can't be bothered to look for examples)
Hence, a lot of this poetry went right past me. Of course, I was bored, because I couldn't understand half of what I was reading.
What was left was a bunch of near hysterical verses full of fighting and partying, exultation and despair. Really, I wanted to ask Byron to chill, the dude's really intense.
CONCLUSION
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Please scroll down for the English version.
A csillagozás a szokásos átlagolásom eredménye: a megírás minősége öt csillag, az élmény három.
Két okból fogtam bele.
Gimnazista-egyetemista koromban nemcsak tetszett, hanem nagyon komoly hatással is volt rám az angol romantika irodalma. Nem túlzás azt állítani, hogy a személyiségem, az életem másképpen nézne ki nélküle. Byron volt az egyedüli, akinek az életművével egyszerűen nem tudtam mit kezdeni. Kifordult a kezemből a Byron-összes. Tiszteltem mint kezdeményezőt, aki nélkül a következő korszakok nagy alkotásainak legalább a fele talán nem is létezne,* és ennyi. Ezen szerettem volna most túltenni magam, hátha megértem rá. Hát sajnos ugyanúgy unom, mint tizenöt-húsz éve. :(
Másrészt szerettem volna tudni, mi a bánatot evett ezen a Childe Haroldon egy egész korszak. Vagy inkább kettő. Mitől számított annyira vonzó irodalmi hősnek, hogy nemzedékek voltak belé szerelmesek. Sajnos ezt se sikerült kideríteni. :( Az egy dolog, hogy ő az elátkozottan bolyongó, gazdagságtól és szerelemtől megcsömörlött, ellenben távoli ideáljába reménytelenül szerelmes, szépséges ifjú. Ebbe bele lehet szeretni (annak, akinek ilyen ízlése van). De hát ebben a műben pont róla esik a legkevesebb szó. Ebben több a lírai kitérő, mint az Anyeginben, pedig már Puskin is túlzásba viszi. A mű második felében konkrétan éppen csak megemlíti az elbeszélő, hogy amúgy neki központi hőse is volna, egyébként meg mindent megtudunk arról, mi az elbeszélő véleménye az olasz városokról meg Görögország helyzetéről. Ezzel az erővel egy háromsoros mellékszereplőbe is bele lehetne szeretni.
Egyébként nagyon szép szöveg. Az összes kitérővel, elmélkedéssel, visszaemlékezéssel, távolba vágyakozással, és mindenekelőtt a melankólia mindent átitató hangulatával együtt. Ilyen stílusban ritkán tudnak csúfot űzni az olvasói elvárásokból. Értem, hogy mitől klasszikus. Csak nekem nincs meg hozzá a megfelelő antennám. És azt nem sikerült ennyi idő alatt se megértenem, mit ettek rajta sok-sok évtizedig.
Na, mindegy, azért a Don Juannal meg a Manfreddal még teszek egy-egy próbát majd.
* Aki nélkül nincs Üvöltő szelek, Jane Eyre, Wildfell asszonya, Egy magyar nábob, Anyegin, és akkor csak felszínes válogatást nyújtottam.
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The number of stars show an arithmetic mean. Five stars for the quality of writing, three for my experience of reading.
I wanted to read it for two reasons.
As a student I didn't simply "like" the literature of romanticism. When I say my personality and my life would be very different without it, I do not exaggerate in the least. British romantic authors were especially important to me. Except for Byron. I just wasn't able to get close to his poetry. With all my respect to him as an initiator, as a catalyst in the styles, genres, ways of thinking of ages to follow him,* there was no way for me to enjoy what he wrote. Now I decided to make myself get over that boredom. I couldn't. :(
Second, I was anxious to find out what on earth made this literary hero so specially lovable for long periods of cultural history. What made those generations fall in love with Childe Harold? Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find an answer to that question either. Of course he is the handsome youth who is suffering from a curse, nauseated by both his own wealth and his lovers, but at the same time hopelessly in love with a distant ideal. I can understand why people (of a certain taste) fall in love with such a man. But his journey is basically the least important topic in this poem. There are more digressions here than in Onegin - and Pushkin did exaggerate quite a bit in this respect. In the second half of the poem, the narrator merely mentions that there's after all such a thing as a central character, but doesn't care about him at all, while the reader gets to know everything about his opinion on Italian cities or the state of affairs in Greece.
Otherwise, it's a beautiful text, with all its lyrical digressions about philosophy, remembrance, desire for distances, and melancholy soaking through all. It's rare to see a book making fun of readers' expectations in such style. I see why it's become a classic. It's just I don't have the right sensors. And I'm incapable of grasping why (oh why) it was such a popular read for so many decades.
No matter. I can still try Don Juan and Manfred in the future.
* Without him, there would be no Wuthering Heights, no Jane Eyre, no Tenant of Wildfell Hall, no Hungarian Nabob, no Eugene Onegin. And that's just a superficial selection. -
It's not a breeze to read this if you live in our century. People who went mad for Byron two hundred years ago read long-form poetry, the Bible, Latin, and Greek as a matter of course--that's what it meant to read. They sat in church a lot. Four references to mythological heroes/Roman history/Italian poets in a single couplet? UP OUT OF THE SADDLE. BRING IT. I CAN DO THIS ALL DAY. But we're the children of Seuss. We've not been taught that reading is a mountain we climb to see the distant, glorious, heroic past and/or to see God. And the references Byron makes to history and to what would have been current events for his readers are increasingly obscure for us. I admit that it was a lot like taking a class without a professor: I had to look up many, many terms, read some criticism, some biography, re-read the first two cantos, and listen to it on audio while ironing (the first time) or while reading it on the page (the second time), and even then, a lot of the third canto was basically me in kindergarten with an index finger moving slowly under the words. HARD, is what I'm saying. And yet the beauty of it is still gobsmacking. It's operatic, yes, but operatic in a good way, and even when there's a clinker ("forsootheth"!) it's fabulous and overwrought and earnest and aspirational in a way that we have lost to our detriment. If nothing else, read the sections about Rome before you go to Rome, and then again while in Rome, so that you can see something besides people taking selfies when you go to the Coliseum. With Byron in your ear, the gladiators will live again for a few minutes, and, then, somehow, forever.
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Lately I've being reading around Frankenstein, so Byron, who was at Lake Geneva that fateful summer when Mary Shelley began writing her masterpiece, couldn't be excluded. The parts of Byron's pilgrimage spent in solitude and melancholy on mountaintops are often quite brilliant:
To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind:
All are not fit with them to stir and toil,
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil
In the hot throng, where we become the spoil
Of our infection, till too late and long
We may deplore and struggle with the coil,
In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong
Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong.
[...]
Is it not better, then, to be alone,
And love Earth only for its earthly sake?
[...]
Is it not better thus our lives to wear,
Than join the crushing crowd, doom’d to inflict or bear?
There is a lot of deep feeling here, along with beautiful descriptions of scenery and musings on the human condition. Half of this long poem, however, is spent in commentary on various wars and historical figures. Historically challenged as I am, and unable to find an annotated digital copy, I couldn't catch most of the references. The lower rating reflects my experience, not Byron's talent. -
What is this weird thing? I have to admit that this is not trivial. Without too much certainty, I would categorize it readily as being a sort of travel verse narrative with the issue of political and cultural opinion.
The word pilgrimage could evoke any religion, but it is not, and the word journey could be just as suitable.
Lord George Gordon Byron, the grandson of the great navigator and explorer commodore John Byron, had been the forerunner of James Cook. Overwhelmed by the weight of his ancestry and probably eager to make a name for himself in his early 20s when the death of his mother and a close friend plunges him into a deep melancholy and encourage him to take the sea and embark on a long journey.
His initial plan for Byron was to reach the British Indies through the Mediterranean, Anatolia, and Persia. He will never complete the land part of this journey, contenting himself with coasting in the Mediterranean. In 1809, he embarked, in mourning or little by little, in the direction of Malta by stopping over in Portugal and the south of Spain.
His Childe Harold is, therefore, a work in verse mainly and largely autobiographical to which he wishes to give a medieval air in the vocabulary and the expressions used.
The complete work consists of four songs, but the first two were written well before the other two and had a different tone from the following two.
The editors decided separate songs I and II from following two - a choice that I approve of - but above all wanted to undertake an edition into verse, which is a choice that I do not approve of at all.
The choice of a "verse mode" is not right, and I want as proof the variations of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin (which was inspired by Childe Harold) where no "verse mode" is capable of supporting the comparison with unverified editions from other's.
So I had a lot of trouble hanging on to these first two songs, and luckily there was the original text opposite which allowed me to guess the real poetry contained in this writing.
It is, therefore, a Byron fiercely opposed to Napoleon that we discover in the Iberian Peninsula (because his trip corresponds to the invasion of Spain by the Great Army). His bias in favour of indigenous peoples against all forms of colonialism is obvious.
In this sense (and especially in his notes which are very interesting), he also denounces the policy of interference of his own country or any other. Demands freedom in the broad sense for the enslaved peoples, whether it be Spain under the boot of Napoleon or Greece under the yoke of the Ottoman Empire.
His commitment to the preservation of ancient heritage, especially in Greece is secure, and he clearly expresses the shame that inspires him from the English looters of Greek antiquities.
This writing is a precursor of romanticism in the sense that it represents an aspiration for freedom, spaces, the beauty of nature or human artifices, but always imbued with a feeling of mourning and nostalgia that nothing can appease.
I finish with a little "I have a dream", for this Childe Harold's Pilgrimage which can restore all the beauty and fluidity of the verb, therefore, very different from it. But this is only my opinion, that is to say, not much. -
Like many literature students, I first encountered Childe Harold in a shortened version. In 2010 I read the last two cantos and I really didn't like it. I still think it is easy to get lost in the language and it is difficult understand what Byron is trying to say, even going over the last two cantos again it was difficult. But after taking my sweet time trying to follow the narrative, I gained a heavy appreciation for this work. I recently read all four cantos and I think the first two cantos are important because it gives the immediacy of Byron's writings. What I learned from reading Byron and Shelley, and even Keats is that their writings are so politically charged because their time demanded them to be. Writing was the medium to voice the unspoken words of the collective. The first two cantos track Childe Harold's discovery of society and also commenting on the nature of humanity. He dives into history in order to acknowledge the fact that 19th century Europe was built on such foundations that persist in ways that call for a need to return to nature and reform society. This tension between where the individual lies in grand scheme not only calls this poem's readers of the time to action but also calls for introspection.
Cantos three and four are more concerned with what we do with ourselves. It looks to the future, questioning what society will be after the Napoleon has been dethroned and this message is one of hope. This second half, in my opinion, is much more beautiful than the first. What took me off guard was the beginning of Canto III. In the first stanza, Byron directly addresses his daughter:
"Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!
Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes, they smiled,
And then we parted,-- not as now we part,
But with a hope--"
It's remarkable to understand that Byron wrote this in the latter years of his career and the work as a whole took up a significant portion of his life. He creates an ongoing narrative around a man in search of the world but here, he drops it. Not as the (and I purposely use this term) narrator of the poem, nor as Childe Harold, but as Byron, the poet. He begins this second half with an event that broke his heart-- his wife leaving him and taking his daughter, and looks at his own difficulties with hope. This directs the poem to Byron's eventual message of hope but it is beautiful how he jumps from this projection of hope to a statement of disheartening distance:
"Awakening with a start,
The waters heave around me; and on high
the winds lift up their voices: I depart,"
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a difficult piece, I have no shame in admitting that I found it difficult, but going through it was very rewarding. The beauty in poetry like this is the level of intimacy it evokes. While Byron is speaking about larger forms of society, there is often a sense of humble dialogue, as if he is pouring his soul out before the reader on these pages. Yes, there is a sense of the ephemeral. Byron is ephemeral, the pages are too, and so is the reader, but he looks out into infinity as if he is certain that the worries and trials of his time are only temporary, acknowledging that he might not see the day, but he leaves it with hope. -
Childe Harold may be the epitome of romanticism, but also of how poorly romanticism has aged. The concept of the work is fascinating-- a travelogue in the form of Spencerian epic verse. Byron's prose endnotes often read more like standard travel writing, and contain some wonderful anecdotes such as encounters with Turkish youth who quizzed him on the structure of Parliament. Some scattered passages are thrilling songs of Byron's self on a thread of expressive works with Wordsworth and Whitman. The fact that Byron aged nearly a decade over the work's composition, and especially between publication of the first two Cantos in 1812, and the rest toward the end of the decade, allows this self-reflexivity to map his maturation. Though many modern readers would no doubt find little of maturity in Byron's unrelenting egoism.
And the work is historically fascinating on several fronts. Most notably, at least in my own current chronological reading itinerary, Byron here is the first to marry romantic individualism, Orientalism, Gothicism and nationalism to a heroic, imperialistic celebration of Greco-Roman civilization. Years before he would give his life on the battlefield of Greek independence, Byron decries Southern European decline and yearns for a new crusade to rescue the land of Europe's roots from the "ottomites". Curiously though, and contra Edward Said, the endnotes evince a regard for Arabo-Islamic achievements that calls to mind the later Richard Burton.
These fine points aside, however, the actual line-level experience of reading this monstrous dreadnought of a poem is dreadfully tedious. The imagery is so firmly ensconced in the author's fine Enlightenment classical education admixed with the sentiments of weary Europe at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, that it is a constant labor to read and decode 200 years later.
Ironic that writing so thick with explicit and implicit claims of universalist transcendence should feel so antique in its presumptive canon, not to mention its animating sentiments. -
""For who would trust the seeming sighs
Of wife or paramour?
Fresh feeres will dry the bright blue eyes
We late saw streaming o'er.
For pleasures past I do not grieve,
Nor perils gathering near;
My greatest grief is that I leave
No thing that claims a tear."
For a poem with a reputation for crass "emo-ness," this was not as bad as I figured. I mean this is literature from the English Romantic movement so "emo" comes with the territory. I'm not a big fan of this genre outside of
John Keats, but I may add Lord Byron to my exception list. This was a saga of a philandering aristocratic that goes around Europe contemplating history and current events...and 'ho-ing it up. This was the birth of the "Byronic hero" that became a staple of his work.
Despite the thin-plot, the lyrics in this poem are good. I think the artistic merit is what you should pay close attention to if you want to get the most out of this. I did enjoy some of the descriptions of different dramatic scenes and his commentary on imperialism in Canto 2. When he goes into Classical history, poem tends to become side-tracked and I can see the criticisms that people make about the poem. In the end, this was one of the most popular works of literature in the post-Napoleonic era and it does tend to capture a mood of its times (and maybe Europe now).
"I have not loved the World, nor the World me,—
But let us part fair foes; I do believe,
Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things,—hopes which will not deceive,
And Virtues which are merciful, nor weave
Snares for the failing; I would also deem
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve—[201]N24
That two, or one, are almost what they seem,—
That Goodness is no name—and Happiness no dream." -
After greatly enjoying listening to Berlioz's "Harolde en Italie" for over fifty years, I finally decided to read Byron's poem several days ago. It was a great delight, albeit not as great as Berlioz's symphony.
Began in the dying years of the Napoleonic War, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" is a clarion call by a youthful Whig aristocrat urging his fellow British noblemen to embrace the cause of liberty in Europe. Amongst many other things, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" vigorously denounces Lord Elgin's removal of the marble statues from the Parthenon so as to taken them back to England.
Six years after completing this poetic cycle, Byron died fighting in the Greek War of Independence which forced Great Britain to intervene in the conflict on the side of the rebells. Byron by his life and poetry made the British Aristocrats ardent supporters of Liberty. Byron also deserves a great deal of credit for the idplomatic support that Britain would give to cause Italian unification. "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" is a great work from a giddy era in English history. -
This was the poem that set Byron on his meteoric course as Don Juan bursting into formal Napoleonic London society like a guided missile. Everyone was reading it, from literate serving girls and parlour maids to the top nobs. It's difficult to believe these days that it sent women into fainting fits. But if you exercise a little imagination you can think yourself back into the mindset of two hundred years ago and get a thrill from it even now, and know that you're reading something worth reading, as it were. Also good for kudos. Who else can say over lunch or a glass of wine in a bar of an evening, 'Have you read Childe Harold? It's rather good'. Joke...
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This is a classic work of Romantic poetry and yet it was difficult to wade through. The fourth canto which seemed to be the longest, mentioned the protagonist only because the story was approaching its end and needed what we now call closure.
All of which left me wondering what actually happened and what I missed. Sigh. Please tell me I don't have to read it over again. -
Dark at the end. I have found another kindred spirit. I haven't read poetry since high school, and read this to see why the Greeks hold (held?) him in such high esteem. That much is clear. (And the great Ada, his daughter, the first computer programmer, who I hope will be my daughters' muse, makes a surprise appearance.)
....
Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, And marvel men should quit their easy chair, The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace. Oh, there is sweetness in the mountain air And life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share.
....
Patience! and ye shall hear what he beheld In other lands, where he was doomed to go: Lands that contain the monuments of eld, Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quelled.
....
Son of the morning, rise! approach you here! Come—but molest not yon defenceless urn! Look on this spot—a nation's sepulchre! Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn. E'en gods must yield—religions take their turn: 'Twas Jove's—'tis Mahomet's; and other creeds Will rise with other years, till man shall learn Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds; Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds.
....
But who, of all the plunderers of yon fane On high, where Pallas lingered, loth to flee The latest relic of her ancient reign— The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he? Blush, Caledonia! such thy son could be! England! I joy no child he was of thine: Thy free-born men should spare what once was free; Yet they could violate each saddening shrine, And bear these altars o'er the long reluctant brine.
....
Cold is the heart, fair Greece, that looks on thee, Nor feels as lovers o'er the dust they loved; Dull is the eye that will not weep to see Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed By British hands, which it had best behoved To guard those relics ne'er to be restored. Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved, And once again thy hapless bosom gored, And snatched thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred!
....
Here the red cross, for still the cross is here, Though sadly scoffed at by the circumcised, Forgets that pride to pampered priesthood dear; Churchman and votary alike despised. Foul Superstition! howsoe'er disguised, Idol, saint, virgin, prophet, crescent, cross, For whatsoever symbol thou art prized, Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss! Who from true worship's gold can separate thy dross.
....
Cease, fool! the fate of gods may well be thine: Wouldst thou survive the marble or the oak, When nations, tongues, and worlds must sink beneath the stroke?
....
Peace abhorreth artificial joys, And Pleasure, leagued with Pomp, the zest of both destroys.
....
Ah, Greece! they love thee least who owe thee most—
....
Marathon became a magic word; Which uttered, to the hearer's eye appear The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career.
....
What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now. Before the Chastener humbly let me bow, O'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroyed: Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow, Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoyed, And with the ills of eld mine earlier years alloyed.
....
Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child! Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart? When last I saw thy young blue eyes, they smiled, And then we parted,—not as now we part, But with a hope.— Awaking with a start, The waters heave around me; and on high The winds lift up their voices: I depart, Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by, When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.
....
Yet must I think less wildly: I HAVE thought Too long and darkly, till my brain became, In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame: And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame, My springs of life were poisoned. 'Tis too late!
....
Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends; Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home; Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends, He had the passion and the power to roam; The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, Were unto him companionship; they spake A mutual language, clearer than the tome Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake For nature's pages glassed by sunbeams on the lake.
....
He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below.
....
Fame is the thirst of youth,—but I am not So young as to regard men's frown or smile As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot; I stood and stand alone,—remembered or forgot.
....
My daughter! with thy name this song begun— My daughter! with thy name this much shall end— I see thee not, I hear thee not,—but none Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend To whom the shadows of far years extend: Albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold, My voice shall with thy future visions blend, And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold,— A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.
....
If from society we learn to live, 'Tis solitude should teach us how to die; It hath no flatterers; vanity can give No hollow aid; alone—man with his God must strive: Or, it may be, with demons, who impair The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey In melancholy bosoms, such as were Of moody texture from their earliest day, And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, Deeming themselves predestined to a doom Which is not of the pangs that pass away; Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom.
....
We wither from our youth, we gasp away— Sick—sick; unfound the boon, unslaked the thirst, Though to the last, in verge of our decay, Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first— But all too late,—so are we doubly curst. Love, fame, ambition, avarice—'tis the same— Each idle, and all ill, and none the worst— For all are meteors with a different name, And death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. -
Hands up everyone who, like me, thought that Childe Harold's Pilgrimage was going to be about, oh, I don't know, a young soon-to-be-knight tramping around Europe and going on grand adventures? I feel like there should be a big sign at the end of the book saying, 'HA HA. Sucked in'.
Don't get me wrong, Byron's first major work is absolutely wonderful - just not in the way I was expecting. It's been so long since I've read poetry that I had more or less forgotten the whole point of the Romantics was less about plot and more about Nature, the individual, the human mind with all its ingenious and imperceptible little nooks and crannies. So I went in expecting some sort of storyline, and found something completely different.
Byron begins the first canto by introducing the young Childe Harold, a man "sore sick at heart" (Canto I, l. 46), disgusted with his native land and his rather riotous way of living:Apart he stalked in joyless reverie,
And from his native land resolved to go,
And visit scorching climes beyond the sea;
With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe,
And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below.
(Canto I, ll. 50-54)
Childe Harold is perhaps a prototype for what would later become known as the 'Byronic hero': moody, scornful, but also intelligent and passionate. And although he is supposedly separate from the persona of the poem, it is often difficult to distinguish between the thoughts and words of Harold and those of the poet. Indeed, Harold takes long tea-breaks throughout the poem, popping in here and there just to remind readers he still exists. It's perhaps unsurprising, considering that Byron himself visited the places that he describes in the poem, including Portugal, Greece, and Albania. It's probably quite right to speculate that the poem could be semi-autobiographical, especially considering the fact that he wrote the first canto while travelling.
The first canto takes us to Spain and Portugal, the second to Albania and Greece. Canto III deals with France, and the final one deals with Italy. Because it was written over a period of several years, it's possible to see Byron refining his skill as a poet; some of the verses in the final canto were particularly good. And although the bulk of the poetry is rather like reading a nineteenth-century travel account (with mourning for the Old World aplenty), you can see some of Byron's political views bleeding through; he spends a great deal of time on the topic of Tyrants, inspired by Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo.
Childe Harold may not always be visible, but reading this poem reaffirmed my love of the Romantics. If this is Byron's early work, I can't wait to read his later, more 'mature' (although the extent to which this word can be applied to Byron is, of course, up for question) works.
Originally posted at
Majoring in Literature. -
Byron is a true genius. That's what I found out after reading this book. He reminded me of Pushkin in some way.
Unfortunately, I read The Pilgrimage in Russian, I'm sure I've lost a good deal. The reason is that I just didn't dare to read it in the original with many archaic words that I would have failed to understand. Nevertheless, even in Russian the book didn't lose its charm!
Together with Childe Harold the book carries you to places like Spain, Greece and Turkey.
It's a breathtaking adventure! -
I only read "Apostrophe to the Ocean" in this, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
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epitomul bisexualului emo
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he's trying to be goethe dar e mai bun mai smecher mai fructat si mai misterios sunt sigur ca ar asculta the smiths tho
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الكتاب الثالث لعام 2023
#أسفار_شيلد_هارولد
#لورد_بايرون
الكتاب عبارة عن مجموعة قصائد وشروحات لما يشبه المغامرة عبر أوروبا على لسان شخصيةٍ متخيلة هو شيلد هارولد والذي يشابه طباع وحياة اللورد بايرون نفسه، بعدما ملَّ حياة المجون والعربدة وسعى لأن يبتعد عن رفاقه الذي يدرك تمامًا عدم محبتهم له، وما كان رفقتهم له إلا نوعٌ من التملق والنفاق لأجل حفلاته ومآدبه.
استهل رحلته البحرية نحو البرتغال واصفًا جمال لشبونة، ليصوّر معالمها بوصفٍ دقيقٍ وشاعري، ليكمل سفره نحو إسبانيا واليونان وألبانيا والعديد من الدول والمدن والآثار، وقد دمج تاريخ تلك المناطق مع أشعاره بصيغ الخطاب والتأمل واستحضار الماضي، والأساطير والشخصيات التي اشتهرت بها، فجاءت أناشيده شاملةً وعذبة وزاخرةً بالثقافة. ولا يمكن أبدًا إنكار الترجمة البديعة للرائع عبد الرحمن بدوي الذي أضفى على العمل جمالًا لغويًا بفصاحته العربية، ومعرفته الواسعة بتلك الحواشي أسفل الصفحات.
كنت قد نويت سابقًا قراءة سلسلة أعمال خالدة لدار المدى، وقد بدأت ببعضها بالفعل ولكن استوقفني عنوان هذا الكتاب وكيف لمجموعة أشعار أن تُصنف ضمن تلك السلسلة العظيمة، وبعد أن قرأت الكتاب، ارفع القبعة احترامًا لمن أدرجها ضمن تلك السلسلة، فهي تستحق وبجدارةٍ أن تسمى بالعمل الخالد.
#إيمان_بني_صخر -
Hark! Tyrant Time: ‘gainst thy e’er shrinking spheres -
Thou Cosmarch of an aeon, a year, an hour -
Borne by the raging Mistral, rends and tears
The Canso of one lonesome troubadour :
Byron – whose Soul withstood the awesome Power
Which mighty Empires its black wrath incurred.
Brief flared their frenzied flame, briefer the Giaour;
Worthy their clay, yet worthier his Word
That garlandeth this lay with a Picardy third. -
'Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel
We once have loved, though love is at an end:
The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal,
Though friendless now, will dream it had a friend
Who with the weight of years would wish to bend,
When Youth itself survives young Love and Joy?
Alas! when mingling souls forget to blend,
Death hath but little left him to destroy!
Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy? -
Beautiful as a work of poetry, and it would be beautiful as a tour guide if I possessed the street knowledge of the time. As a modern reader a lot of the references go right over my head, so if this book were to contain a map with references to the text I'd jump for join.
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Dear Lord Byron,
You are so freaky. I love you. Let's run away to Italy together and cause a scandal. Come on... we're both dog people. Let's do it.
Love,
Jessica -
(Throughout the four cantos, Byron's first-person narrator gains increasing prominence, whilst Harold recedes into the shadowy oblivion: this shows that Byron finally dropped the pretence that both personages were not based on him. I will equate both the narrator and Harold to Byron simply for the sake of convenience, while at the end of the day I will always keep in mind that the equation is far from perfect.)
Byron's cup of debauchery has reached the brim: he is sated and simply wishes to escape England. He travels to Portugal and Spain, then to Greece, then across the Rhine and ends his pilgrimage in Italy. All the while he muses on past victors and tyrants, degrees of slavery and freedom of the people, the awe and awfulness of warfare and the sublime majesty of Nature. He also mixes in a wealth of mythology and history, and this is largely to which any difficulty in the poem could be attributed to (for the references are subtle and sometimes rather obscure).
All the different elements of this fusion serve to make the Pilgrimage what I would like to term "an ardouros journey": it marries the arduous with ardour both in terms of form and subject matter. Being an epic poem, it can feel needlessly obfuscating, and this is made even more difficult by the plethora of hard references to events of the past I have never heard of. At the same time, it is a vast poem, that makes a delicious use of enjambment to underscore (among other things) the vastness that it seeks to portray. And what it portrays is both the bloody stampede of histrory, the vanishing strut of mythology, the gloomy ramblings of Byron and the absolute station of Nature. All this with chillingly visceral language that will uproot weeds of ennui.
Here is probably a famous example of the power of Byron's language. At the very least is one that struck me the most:
Could I embody and unbosom now
That which is most within me,—could I wreak
My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak,
All that I would have sought, and all I seek,
Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe—into one word,
And that one word were Lightning, I would speak;
But as it is, I live and die unheard,
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.
This is a rather navel-gazing example, and it brings us to one of the most remarkable things about the poem, aside from the obvious grandeur of language. And that is Byron's magical negation.
When Byron muses on the rights and wrongs of warfare, on who has acted nobly and who has died an ignoble death in slavery and on the general march of Death, he always returns to the thrilling potency of Nature. He negates Mankind and to an extent himself when he views the ruins, the vales, the waterfalls, the mountains, the sea and the stars. Take this beautiful example that demonstrates the degree of such negation:
Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Of men and empires,—'tis to be forgiven,
That is our aspirations to be great,
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,
And claim a kindred with you; for ye are
A beauty and a mystery, and create
In us such love and reverence from afar,
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.
In a way you could say that this is not negation but rather the dwarfing of Man. And you would be even more right to assert that since Byron continues to describe Nature with such human fervour, by the use of human standards, the human is hardly negated. But at the same time he continues to stress, throughout the Pilgrimage that Nature will be here long after Mankind has passed into oblivion. In the example I just gave, Byron circumscribes Man to his "mortal state", pointing out the beautiful folly of aspirations of an astral degree, aspirations that needs fall short. It is the downplaying of such aspirations, the focus on death and the continuity of something that is not made by man that makes me use the term negation.
But the negation is not perfect by any means, at least in one case. Byron himself draws immense amounts of energy from his natural surroundings and, in reciprocation, channels his own powers into Nature. The landscapes and natural phenomena can at times give form to his tremendous passions, they inspire him with their merciless power and beauty and their eternity give him a religious thrill that most likely warrants the title of the poem. Because of this channeling of powers, I also wanted to qualify the negation with "magical": in a way, it's the momentary negation of the negation, since in magic, the subject can gain great prominence if they are taken to be the central point through which the magical powers of the universe flow. (My views on magic are largely coloured by Cavendish's book the Black Arts.)
This magical negation makes the poem such a daring feat with a lot of tension. The stanzas seem to be constantly rolling onward, either because it's a long poem with a supposed narrative or because of the tactical use of enjambment. Yet the individual stanzas describe how Byron is gazing about in awe, now marking this phenomenon, now that; now feeling the dread of nothingness and now feeling god-like or close to Nature. Sometimes, indeed, the enjambment can express diffidence: Byron might gives us the idea that he is hesitating to put his overflowing feelings into words, afraid that he might not have the power of expression. His moods swing to and fro, the scenery swirls around and through, the elements of historical and mythological narrative encroach as memento mori... and yet the poem moves on. And soon we find Byron as the centre of the world once more.
Childe Harold most likely remained a Childe, for he did not try himself in great feats of arms. He found something a lot more potent, a lot more everlasting than Greek or Roman deities or cities of unsurpassed splendour. So one could say that his Pilgrimage was an ardouros success.
PS. I found
this video really encouraging. In it Stephen Fry and Jonathan Bate discuss the poetic form, and they point out such crucial things as slowing down and what "enjambment" means in the first place! -
i too wish that my life consisted solely of scandalous sexual liaisons and incessant travels. byron fucks in every sense of the word
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For a better experience: must be read when you are surrounded by Nature!
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Quoted by
Herman Melville in
Moby-Dick or, the Whale. Sounds like a beautiful long-narrative poem. -
رائع أنت يا عبد الرحمن بدوي
