Byron: Life and Legend: A Review
Fiona McCarthy's biography of Lord Byron
A review of Fiona McCarthy's superb one-volume biography of Romantic poet Lord Byron.
Introduction
Lord Byron is arguably the most famous poet of all-time. If one has not actually read his life works, then the name is at least synonymous with all manner of earthly excess. Lady Caroline Lamb, a former lover of Byron's infamous summary of 'He's mad, bad and dangerous to know' reverberates throughout Fiona McCarthy's superb single volume biography Byron: Life and Legend. Byron's short life and work was bound to echo throughout the centuries after his death at 36 years old.
Early Years
George Gordon Byron was born in Scotland in 1788 and educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge. McCarthy portrays Byron as a rather precocious talent from very early on - he was writing poems before he was ten years of age. A major discussion of Byron’s bisexuality and his male lovers forms an early part of the book ruminating on the 19th century revulsion for homosexuality and how dangerous it was for Byron and his lovers.
Byron: Life and Legend is filled with wonderfully comic anecdotes relating to Byron’s eccentricity and disregard for conventions of the day - including the now famous ‘bear’ incident at Trinity College: Byron being forbidden from keeping a dog in his university lodgings went out and bought a former dancing bear arguing there was no rule disallowing the keeping of a bear in the university rulebook.
Marriage and Exile
Fiona McCarthy’s Byron: Life and Legend focuses a lot of attention on archival material for her book and typical of literary biography’s uses the works, letters, diaries and journals to draw together the life story of Byron.
Byron disastrous marriage and subsequent incestuous relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh, forced Byron to flee England for good. It is with some irony that the love of Byron’s life was his sister - McCarthy beautifully places together extracts from Byron’s letters and diaries relating his feelings and ultimately the tragedy of the relationship.
The infamous night at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland, in which Percy Bysshe Shelley, Dr. Polidori and Mary Shelley told ghost stories and created classic works is discussed in relatively few pages as it did not form a major part of Byron’s life. The relationship with Shelley is one of cordial admiration rather than the close-bond often referred to.
Poems
Byron’s poems have been attacked over time by critics as dated and populist. However, the more one is familiar with Byron’s influences and life, the more pleasurable the readings of them are. Byron's work often creates an exquisite rhythm and tone. McCarthy again, like most biographers, searches for meanings and motives within the work to explain aspects of his character.
Death and Legacy
Byron’s death at Missolonghi, Greece at 36 years old catapulted his already notorious reputation into history. His inclusion as a leading Romantic poet is justified as his works are still read today almost two hundred years after his death.
Summary
Fiona McCarthy’s energetic book is a worthy addition to Byron scholarship and intends to re-establish Byron as a historic poetic figure. Byron was a mass of contradictions - at once prone to snobbery yet friendly; violent yet vulnerable - he was a strange character indeed. Byron: Life and Legend is a brilliant read.
