Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2011

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.In 1812 the 24-year-old Lord Byron published the first part of a long narrative poem. It caused an instant sensation. "I awoke one morning and found myself famous", wrote Byron in his memorandum book, and the first edition sold out in three days. The poem narrates the life of an aristocrat on a grand tour of Europe. Its central character is the first Byronic hero, a flawed but charismatic young man modelled on the poet.As well as offering a self-portrait of Byron as a young man, Childe Harold is a fascinating snapshot of Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a place ravaged by revolution and war; the poem also gives us an insight into the political and intellectual concerns of its author.With:Jonathan BateProfessor of English Literature at the University of WarwickJane StablerReader in Romanticism at the University of St AndrewsEmily Bernhard JacksonAssistant Professor in Nineteenth-Century English Literature at the University of Arkansas.Producer: Thomas Morris.

Transcript

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0:44.8	Hello at the height of the Napoleonic Wars a 21-year-old aristocrat George Gordon Byron the
0:51.0	sixth Baron Baron left Falmouth on a ship bound for Portugal. The year was
0:55.0	1809 and for the next two years he travelled through Portugal, Spain and the Eastern Mediterranean.
1:01.3	During his time abroad Lord Byron began to work on a long narrative poem about another
1:05.3	young nobleman Harold who escapes his woes by embarking on a grand tour. Harold is the first
1:10.8	bionic hero, a youth described in the poem's opening stanzas as a
1:15.0	shameless white saw given to revel and ungodly glee.
1:19.8	Published in 1812, the first part of Childh Howell's pilgrimage sold out within hours.
1:23.8	I awoke one morning and found myself famous, he wrote.
	...

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