Oh my god, no. 😂 I had largely forgotten the Byron poems I read in college, but I do remember MANFRED, the closet drama, which as a teenaged English major goth, I enjoyed the shit out because of the unhinged gothic vibe and spirit summoning plot. HOWEVER, I started laughing aloud at your critical summary of his poems because sister issues, check, broodily staring off a cliff, check, atheism, check. “This fucking guy” indeed!
‘Now. If you know anything about 19th century British history, it’s that English people cannot be fucking trusted in the Mediterranean or the Middle East. Turn your back on them for 45 minutes and they start eating mummies and stealing marbles.’
Automatic subscribe from me. The funniest thing about Byron’s I’m-the-only-one-who-can-save-Greece crusade is that he commissioned an opera costumer to make him and his bros a bunch of fake uniforms so they could serve (militarily, not so much) (looks, also kinda meh.)
Damn! I got a BA in English Literature and if any of my professors had discussed even a quarter of this in class I certainly would have enjoyed Byron more; not his poems, but at least his life.
Oh, I love this one. I was this many years old before I learned the true history of Lord Byron. This is all the stuff they never told us of in English Lit. I can see why. It's hard to celebrate a man for being one of THE Romantics (Byron, Keats, Shelly) who died early, tragic deaths...except they didn't really tell us the whole story, did they? I just love these stories! I know I don't comment enough, and maybe I should, but wow.
Hope you're allowing him Don Juan, though, which is brilliant.
Re the Greek freedom fighting: I always thought that was him scoring off Hobhouse, who'd recently been imprisoned for radical politics i.e. walking the talk, rather than just posturing (and tossing his flowing locks). But who knows?
"As best I can understand, this was Byron’s pathological need to be the manliest and most elaborately scandalous person in any room."
I glossed over Byron when I read this and thought "Hemingway" instead.
I believe it was Keats who called Wordsworth “Wordswords,” which was almost as clever and more apt.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is how Wikipedia pages should be written.
Justice for Claire Clairmont!!
Oh my god, no. 😂 I had largely forgotten the Byron poems I read in college, but I do remember MANFRED, the closet drama, which as a teenaged English major goth, I enjoyed the shit out because of the unhinged gothic vibe and spirit summoning plot. HOWEVER, I started laughing aloud at your critical summary of his poems because sister issues, check, broodily staring off a cliff, check, atheism, check. “This fucking guy” indeed!
Worth reading to the end just to see “Turdsworth”! I am enraged on behalf of Allegra though.
God I love every one of your posts!
‘Now. If you know anything about 19th century British history, it’s that English people cannot be fucking trusted in the Mediterranean or the Middle East. Turn your back on them for 45 minutes and they start eating mummies and stealing marbles.’
😭😂
There are so many sentences in this that I love so much.
The "Lord 'Fuck Around' Byron, finding out" image caption was magnificent.
Given the life he led, it's kind of appropriate that one of the longer poems he wrote was about the similarly inclined Don Juan.
Automatic subscribe from me. The funniest thing about Byron’s I’m-the-only-one-who-can-save-Greece crusade is that he commissioned an opera costumer to make him and his bros a bunch of fake uniforms so they could serve (militarily, not so much) (looks, also kinda meh.)
Well. This is my favorite new way to read about historical figures. Thank you!
Damn! I got a BA in English Literature and if any of my professors had discussed even a quarter of this in class I certainly would have enjoyed Byron more; not his poems, but at least his life.
Oh, I love this one. I was this many years old before I learned the true history of Lord Byron. This is all the stuff they never told us of in English Lit. I can see why. It's hard to celebrate a man for being one of THE Romantics (Byron, Keats, Shelly) who died early, tragic deaths...except they didn't really tell us the whole story, did they? I just love these stories! I know I don't comment enough, and maybe I should, but wow.
OOOOOO I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE
Hope you're allowing him Don Juan, though, which is brilliant.
Re the Greek freedom fighting: I always thought that was him scoring off Hobhouse, who'd recently been imprisoned for radical politics i.e. walking the talk, rather than just posturing (and tossing his flowing locks). But who knows?