Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

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Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series Page 338

by Lord Byron


  The delineation of that Promethean fortitude which defied conscience, as he has shown it in Manfred, is his greatest achievement. The terrific fables of Marlowe and of Goethe, in their respective versions of the legend of Faustus, had disclosed the utmost writhings which remorse in the fiercest of its torments can express; but what are those Laocoon agonies to the sublime serenity of Manfred. In the power, the originality, and the genius combined, of that unexampled performance, Lord Byron has placed himself on an equality with Milton. The Satan of the Paradise Lost is animated by motives, and dignified by an eternal enterprise. He hath purposes of infinite prospect to perform, and an immeasurable ambition to satisfy. Manfred hath neither purpose nor ambition, nor any desire that seeks gratification. He hath done a deed which severs him from hope, as everlastingly as the apostacy with the angels has done Satan. He acknowledges no contrition to bespeak commiseration, he complains of no wrong to justify revenge, for he feels none; he despises sympathy, and almost glories in his perdition.

  The creation of such a character is in the sublimest degree of originality; to give it appropriate thoughts and feelings required powers worthy of the conception; and to make it susceptible of being contemplated as within the scope and range of human sympathy, places Byron above all his contemporaries and antecedents. Milton has described in Satan the greatest of human passions, supernatural attributes, directed to immortal intents, and stung with inextinguishable revenge; but Satan is only a dilatation of man. Manfred is loftier, and worse than Satan; he has conquered punishment, having within himself a greater than hell can inflict. There is a fearful mystery in this conception; it is only by solemnly questioning the spirits that lurk within the dark metaphors in which Manfred expresses himself, that the hideous secrets of the character can be conjectured.

  But although in intellectual power, and in creative originality, Byron is entitled to stand on the highest peak of the mountain, his verse is often so harsh, and his language so obscure, that in the power of delighting he is only a poet of the second class. He had all the talent and the means requisite to embody his conceptions in a manner worthy of their might and majesty; his treasury was rich in everything rare and beautiful for illustration, but he possessed not the instinct requisite to guide him in the selection of the things necessary to the inspiration of delight: — he could give his statue life and beauty, and warmth, and motion, and eloquence, but not a tuneful voice.

  Some curious metaphysicians, in their subtle criticism, have said that Don Juan was but the bright side of Childe Harold, and that all its most brilliant imagery was similar to that of which the dark and the shadows were delineated in his other works. It may be so. And, without question, a great similarity runs through everything that has come from the poet’s pen; but it is a family resemblance, the progeny are all like one another; but where are those who are like them? I know of no author in prose or rhyme, in the English language, with whom Byron can be compared. Imitators of his manner there will be often and many, but he will ever remain one of the few whom the world acknowledges are alike supreme, and yet unlike each other — epochal characters, who mark extraordinary periods in history.

  Raphael is the only man of pre-eminence whose career can be compared with that of Byron; at an age when the genius of most men is but in the dawning, they had both attained their meridian of glory, and they both died so early, that it may be said they were lent to the world only to show the height to which the mind may ascend when time shall be allowed to accomplish the full cultivations of such extraordinary endowments.

  ‘Lord Byron on his Death-bed’ by Joseph Denis Odevaere, 1826

  St. Mary Magdalene Church, Hucknall Torkard, Nottinghamshire — Byron’s final resting place

  Byron’s grave

  Table of Contents

  The Poetry Collections

  HOURS OF IDLENESS

  CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE

  HEBREW MELODIES

  STANZAS FOR MUSIC

  OCCASIONAL PIECES, 1807-1824

  DOMESTIC PIECES, 1816

  SATIRES

  TALES

  DRAMAS

  BEPPO

  DON JUAN

  MINOR POEMS

  The Poems

  LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

  The Short Story

  FRAGMENT OF A NOVEL

  The Letters

  THE LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON

  The Biography

  THE LIFE OF LORD BYRON by John Galt

 

 

 


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