Lord Byron

"I stood and stand alone,--remember'd or forgot.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd
To its idolatries a patient knee,--
Nor coin'd my cheeks to smiles,--nor cried aloud
In worship of an echo; in the crowd
They could not deem me one of such; I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thought, and still could,
Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued."
(Byron, pg 361, from Childe Harolde's Pilgrimage)

It is not at all difficult to see how Byron could have felt alone with all the criticism that he received for his poetry and his personal life. I am sure that he especially suffered from Lady Byron leaving along with his daughter, despite the many women that he had in his life. The criticism was not one-sided. As the second line above suggests, Byron spat as much criticism as he received. I love the wording he used, "nor cried aloud in worship of an echo." It reminds me of a child who cries for the effect of the sound. There is nothing at all wrong, but they know that it will get attention.

The words to his daughter in the poem are sad but beautiful. He really makes you feel horrible that he was kept from her.

"Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,
I know that thou wilt love me..."

"...I know that thou wilt love me; though to drain
My blood from out thy being were an aim,
And an attachment,--all would be in vain,--
Still thou would'st love me, still that more than life retain."
(pg 362)

The way that he repeats that line, "I know thou wilt love me" shows me how much he wants to believe that. It is terrible to think that this guy actually had to fear his daughter never knowing him and never hearing anything good about him. I think that he was perhaps confident that his words would get to her at some point. Byron showed so much strength in his work. I think that the criticism that he received only makes him more intriguing. He was a bold man attacking others by name in his poems. Modern rappers are notorious for attacking each other with their rhymes or about their rhymes. They are like a less sophisticated, but modernly more marketable version of Don Juan! I also love his use of humor in that poem.

"She scarcely trusted him from out her sight;
Her maids were old, and if she took a new one,
You might be sure she was a perfect fright,
She did this even during her husband's life--
I recommend as much to every wife."
(pg 383)

Clearly he is playing on his own marital problems, but he also reminds me of that song about getting an ugly girl to marry you. (If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife...!)

"The Druids' groves are gone--so much the better:
Stone-Henge is not--but what the devil is it?--"
(pg 388)

200 years later, who knows? I definitely was able to get a different feeling when I read Don Juan aloud as opposed to silently. I think that the rhyme scheme gives it that extra punch. I got that from some of his other poems as well, but this one most of all. I think that Byron was knowledgeable about many things besides just politics and poetry. He was able to mingle different attitudes, ideas, and subjects into his works. While humor and intelligence are attractive traits, I think it was his flattery that enabled him to woo the ladies. After I read the first entry of his in the book, She Walks in Beauty, I realized that he wrote words that women would die to hear. He uses that same finesse when he describes the women in his other poems despite how he felt about Lady Byron.

Finally, On This Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year really grabbed my attention. It reminded me of Coleridge's Epitaph only less dark. Byron was able to incorporate his humor into his death-chant. They both have that sense of criticism lingering over them, but Byron is just funny to me.

"Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!"
(pg 390)

A Don Juan to the end!