James Baquet

George Gordon, Lord Byron — commonly known simply as “Byron” — was a poet, but his longer poems often told stories which would stand if written in prose.

One of the best-known of these is “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.” Its hero is not a child, but a childe (pronounced “sheeld”) — a medieval term for a young man preparing to become a knight. Harold is the prototype of what is called the Byronic hero: a moody character who often sighs as he contemplates beauty and reflects on the hopelessness of things — somewhat like Byron himself.

The “pilgrimage” is not a journey to a holy site per se, but an aesthetic tour of the European continent. Harold starts in Spain and Portugal in Canto I, and bemoans the foreign battles that have occurred in those pastoral countries. And this is not just a thing of the past, he notes, “For Spain is compassed by unyielding foes” even in Byron’s day (France foremost).

In Canto II, Harold visits Greece, where its great beauty is marred by Turkish occupation. “Spirit of Freedom!” he asks, did you foresee this hour when your descendants are “Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand/ From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned.”

Canto III takes him to the plains of Waterloo in Belgium, where the Duke of Wellington defeated the French under Napoleon: “And Harold stands upon this place of skulls/ The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo!”

At last, in Canto IV, Harold journeys through Italy, lamenting the disappearance of that country’s heroic past. “Yet, Italy!” he cries, “Mother of Arts! as once of Arms,” but now she has suffered “ten thousand rents/ Of thine imperial garment...” reaching the Colosseum in Rome, he notes that it is an “exhaustless mine/ Of contemplation” (as almost everything is for Harold!), seeing “power/ And magic in the ruined battlement.”

The world-weary outlook of the “childe” was soon made the subject of satire, as everyone recognized in it Byron’s own personality and point of view, try as he might to deny that Harold was he. Nevertheless, it became a touchstone for later poets, who found in it a model either to be emulated or rejected. Numerous artists and musicians were also inspired by the poem in their own works.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. as such, in itself

2. having to do with beauty

3. copied

4. surrounded

5. model

6. torn, ripped

7. tired of life

8. whip, lash

9. damaged

10. plain, not poetic, language