Byronic Hero

A theme that pervades much of Byron's work is that of the Byronic hero, an idealised but flawed character whose attributes include:

* being a rebel * having a distaste for social institutions * being an exile * expressing a lack of respect for rank and privilege * having great talent * hiding an unsavoury past * being highly passionate * ultimately, being self-destructive

Not only is the character a frequent part of his work, Byron's own life could cast him as a Byronic hero. The literary history of the Byronic hero in English can be traced from Milton, especially Milton's interpretation of Lucifer as having justified complaint against God. One of Byron's most popular works in his lifetime, the closet play "Manfred," was loosely modeled on Goethe's anti-hero, Faust. Byron's influence was manifested by many authors and artists of the Romantic movement during the 19th century and beyond. An example of such a hero is Heathcliff from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights.

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimages

A long narrative poem about masculinity. In Byron's poem, the main character is portrayed as a dark brooding man, who doesn't like society and wants to escape from the world because of his discontent with it. It deals with the underdog and Military might. Byron uses gothic literature imagery to get sublime nature, representing adventure, such as climbing mountains for sport. Previous to this, mountain climbing had been thought of as being associated with evil. Instead this poem deals with engaging and conquering the dark side of nature. The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for distraction in foreign lands.

(Note: The term childe was a medieval title for a young man who was a candidate for knighthood.)

**It has four cantos written in Spenserian stanzas, which consist of eight iambic pentameter lines followed by a one alexandrine (a twelve syllable iambic line), and rhyme ababbcbcc.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

One important thing to note about Coleridge, which I do not discuss below, is that he co-wrote The Lyrical Ballads with Wordsworth.  For my money, I'd bet on seeing "On Donne's poetry" and "Frost at Midnight," but there are a fair nuumber of works by Coleridge that could appear on your exam.

“Frost at Midnight”

*“On Donne’s Poetry”

With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots, Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots ; Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue, Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.

Biographia Literaria

Coleridge’s thesis is that the imagination is the supreme faculty of the human intellect, and its cultivation is both a prerequisite and the aim of poetry. For him, “imagination” is the process of keenly perceiving the phenomena of the world and self, and then re-expressing phenomena through the creative faculties of the poet’s whole being, the mind and the soul, the rational and the irrational.

All that is necessary to identify this passage is the following information: Coleridge always capitalizes the words “Imagination” and “Fancy,” which recur throughout the work.