Biography George Gordon Byron
Byron was born on January 22, 1788 in a noble, but impoverished family.
He spent his childhood in Scotland, in the small town of Aberdeen.
The first impressions of the boy were associated with the wild Scottish nature, life and traditions of the mountaineers. They served as the basis for a number of youthful poems in which the harsh nature of the mountainous Scotland is glorified, with its waterfalls, gorges, and its sea (“I want to be a free child…”, “Lakin-i-Gar”, etc.).
When Byron was 10 years old, he inherited the title of lord and the family castle of Newsted (formerly a Catholic monastery), granted to the ancestors of Byron during the Reformation. The dilapidated castle is the Newstead Abbey, its shady park is more than once mentioned in Byron’s poetry.
In 1801 the boy entered the school. The Harrow site, where the school was located, with its hills and river was the exact opposite of the grim Newstead abbey. At school
In the school years, many features of Byron’s character were revealed, which he retained for life: seriousness, the ability to think deeply about the events of the surrounding life and at the same time gaiety, impetuosity, cheerfulness.
In his early childhood, Byron was an inactive, sickly child; in school he grew up and grew stronger physically, with enthusiasm engaged in sports: rowing, riding, shooting and swimming. His fame as an athlete, excellent rider and excellent swimmer was established later in the university, and especially after in 1810, during his first voyage, he crossed the Dardanelles strait. The Italians, Byron’s friends, nicknamed him “the English-fish.”
In the school Byron always took under his patronage younger, weaker comrades, protecting them from the attacks of older schoolchildren. A faithful
In 1805, after graduating from high school in Harrow, Byron entered the university. In the years of the students there was the first collection of his lyrical poems – “Watch of leisure”, in which he included his youthful works.
The official press met Unholy with the first book of Byron. But the young poet accepted the challenge and responded to his opponents with a satire of “English Bards and Scottish Observers.” He sharply criticized modern English literature related to the interests of the owners, primarily its most reactionary wing – the so-called “lake school” poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey. The appearance of the name “Lake School” was associated with the predilection of these poets to one of the regions of northwestern England, where the old, patriarchal living conditions, praised by reactionary romantics, were still preserved. In this “edge of the lakes” were often Wordsworth and his friends. They were united by common reactionary political and literary views: fear of the revolutionary movement, fear of the people, preaching of art, hostile to the advanced ideas of our time. By his satire Byron dealt a crushing blow to recognized singers of bourgeois-aristocratic England – a blow that
they could not forgive him.
When, having celebrated his majority, Byron in 1809 first appeared in parliament, he was hostilely met by the House of Lords.
The conflict between the poet and the reactionary English society gradually increased. In the summer of the same year, Byron went on his first trip to the countries of the Middle East; leaving his homeland, he, like the hero written as a result of this journey of the first two songs of the poem “The Pilgrimage of Childe Harold,” is sad about the people close to him; among them – the mother and beloved sister of Augustus, whose faithful friendship remained for Byron a constant support throughout life. During the trip, Byron visits Lisbon, then along with one of his friends, he crosses southwestern Spain, from Gibraltar travels to the island of Malta, wanders around Albania and Greece. The result of the trip were the first two songs of Childe Harold’s “Pilgrimage” – a poem that brought the young poet world fame
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