Lord Byron
Lord Byron was born as George Gordon Byron on 22nd January 1788. He is credited to be a key figure in romanticism. His notable works include Don Juan, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Though his Corsair was also well received as it had sold 10,000 copies on the very first day of its release.
Lord Byron belongs to those select few band of poets who were as popular for their personality traits as their poems. The concept of “Byronic Hero” emerged which served as an inspiration for many poets all across Europe. His ex-lover Lady Caroline Lamb is credited to give him this title, who mentioned him as being “mad, bad, and dangerous to know”. His characters are often dubbed melancholic, mysterious, charismatic and sexually dominating which are directly attributed to the financial burden faced by his mother and his philandering ways. His father squandered all the fortune inherited by his mother and deserted them penniless. Further his successive affairs, flings and marriages all ended on sour note. All this had an impact on the actual creation of his characters.
Lord Byron was also a member of “the House of Lords” (1809) and was a staunch supporter of social reforms. Byron lived the last eight years of his life abroad so as to escape the constant taunts of incest and rising debt charges in Britain. However he used this time to acquaint himself well with the Italian, Greek and Armenian cultures. He volunteered to help the Greek to overthrow the Ottoman Empire, commanding his own military group. This quest of his was short lived as he breathed his last before executing it, succumbing to a fever contracted in Messolonghi in Greecein 1824.