145 Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know - The Story of Lord Byron

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

History, Arts, Books

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2018

⏱️ 53 minutes

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Summary

The Later Romantic poet George Gordon Byron, once described by Lady Caroline Lamb as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know," lived 36 years and became world famous, his astonishing career as a poet matched only by his astonishing record as a breaker of norms, an insatiable lover, a bizarre hedonist, a restless exile, a head-scratching eccentric, a passionate friend, a determined athlete, an ardent revolutionary, and in general, one of the greatest embracers of life the world has ever seen. Works discussed include Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Fugitive Pieces / Hours of Idleness, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and Don Juan. For another taste of Romantic poetry, try our episode on Poetry and Ruins, which includes a look at Shelley's Ozymandias. Jacke recounts his own attempts to write a Keatsian poem in the Bad Poetry episode. Byron makes a cameo appearance - he was on the scene when both Frankenstein and vampires were invented - in our Mary Shelley episode. Want some of the older Romantics? Try our episode on Coleridge and the Person from Porlock. EXCITING NEWS!!!! We are giving away a FREE History of Literature Podcast mug and a FREE copy of Ronica Dhar’s book, Bijou Roy, to two lucky Patreon donors! Sign up now at patreon.com/literature to be eligible for this special bonus offer. If you’d like to purchase a mug instead, or just donate a fiver or two to the show, you can find out how at historyofliterature.com/shop. Learn more about the show at historyofliterature.com or facebook.com/historyofliterature. Contact the host at jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com or on Twitter @thejackewilson. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you're listening to The History of Literature, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding literature, history, and storytelling like Storybound, Micheaux Mission, and The History of Standup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio. The Hello. The romantic poets of the late 18th and early 19th centuries have long
0:31.1	fascinated us for the beauty and rich intelligence of
0:34.9	their poetry. Their dramatic personal lives and the way that six of them in
0:39.8	particular helped to define their era. They are often divided into two groups of three,
0:46.4	which roughly speaking sit on two sides of a generational divide.
0:50.3	Blake, Worsworth, and Coleridge, born between 1757 and 1772, and Keats, Shelly, and Byron, who were born between 1788 and 1795.
1:05.0	It was an age when poetry mattered,
1:07.4	both to artists and to the public.
1:10.1	For all the differences among the six,
1:12.1	they all shared a belief in the power of poetry.
1:15.1	That poetry helped to shape reality by fixing reality or framing it in a sense, interpreting it.
1:23.0	It was a time when one could assert in Shelley's famous phrase
1:27.5	that poets were the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
1:32.0	Let's recall those birthdates again and that generational divide and put it in the context of history.
1:38.0	In particular, the French Revolution of 1789, a seismic event for Europe and the world. Traditions were suddenly transformed, upended,
1:48.4	institutions up for grabs. People took sides. Change was happening everywhere. Blake was 32 at the time of the
1:57.0	Revolution and Wordsworth and Coleridge were in their late teens. Byron on the other hand was only one and Keith and Shelly not
2:06.1	yet born. For the older generation the revolution was something exciting,
2:10.8	something promising, but also something to resist or lament. They knew a world
2:17.3	before and a world after. They saw the excesses of the revolution, they saw the downside. The younger generation knew nothing
2:26.2	else and they became frustrated by the inability of the older poets, in particular Wordsworth
2:32.2	and Coleridge, to fully embrace the new.
	...

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