Imported Poems

I've finished up this section with two more to cover: 1) banishment from England 2) their works / aesthetics, etc. Almost there!

It was these qualities and his controversial life that drew hoards of women, almost against their will, as well as members of the aristocracy to seek out his company, a phenomenon which came to be known simply as “Byromania”. In Byron’s own words, “I awoke one morning and found myself famous.“ Friend Tom Moore notes that the poet’s “vast mental power” and “personal desirability” caused an effect which was “electric; his fame had not to wait for any ordinary gradations, but seemed to spring up like the palace of a fairy tale, in an night.” Sam Rogers recalled “…the maneuvers of certain noble ladies to gain access to Byron through him. Their frenzies were accelerated by his remoteness, the ‘sort of moonlight paleness’ of his countenance, and the noli me tangere impression he gave to people whom he did not know.” Furthermore, he received an inordinate number of letters from females, pledging love or a lock of hair, cadging for an autograph or requesting a meeting with the famous poet. Byron did not spurn such affection, but rather - to quote Shakespeare - “looked to like, if looking liking move”. Intrigued and flattered by such attention, which had the unintentional effect of compensating for the self-consciousness and insecurity he felt about his club foot, Byron fell headlong into debauchery. By 1812, “female adulation” had become “the most captivating charm of his heart.”

In fact, the presence and personality that mystified and enthralled the minds and hearts of so many was nothing less than presence and personality of the manic-depressive enrapt in his own passions. By this time, Byron had developed the full spectrum of symptoms, manifesting the “inflated self-esteem or grandiosity, decreased need for sleep, distractibility, increase in goal-directed activity, psychomotor agitation, and excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences” required for a diagnosis of mania. This self-titled “Napoleon of Rhyme” - a comparison Byron would maintain throughout his life - was noted for requiring little sleep, often retiring as late at 5AM and rising no later than 2PM the following day. Consequently, the poet found time for a multitude of activities that left his associates and friends dragging in his wake: writing, reading, swimming, fencing, boxing, cricket, gambling, shopping (the extent of his debt required him to sell Newstead Abbey) , dueling, traveling across the world, drinking and having inordinate amounts of sex with both men and women. If the poet’s own account can be believed - that he conquered about 200 women in one year - Byron’s total sexual liaisons could easily approximate 1000 in his lifetime.

But, like all manic-depressives, Byron was unable to sustain this flurry of activity, and when exhausted, was prone to fall headlong into despair, with the worst episode occurring around the birth of his child, Augusta Ada. Perpetually high on laudanum and drunk on alcohol, Byron would, at the slightest provocation, fly into a rage, “breaking and burning things”, “knocking off the heads of bottles with a poker” and even threatening to shoot himself. At the time, Byron’s assistant, Fletcher, was called on to keep eye on Byron’s loaded pistols, which he stored beside his bed, lest in a moment of insanity he feel impelled to use them. The Lord’s ritualistic bulimia - alternating between periods of starvation and secret, extreme indulgence - certainly did nothing to mitigate his madness. Most of Byron’s depressions were not so limpid as this incident, however; rather, they were expressed primarily through his nihilistic and fatalistic thinking, the certainty of his own reprobate state, and his self-annihilating behavior.

Indeed, Byron must be interpreted as a series of contradictions, both in thought and in fact, for what he attested to in one frame of mind he was likely to disqualify in another, and who and what he had previously considered virtuous was likely to turn vice, and vice-versa. Consistency in mind, heart and soul are proprietary traits of the normal; the burden of Bryon’s genius was to never know that semblance of sanity, that stability of mood that often harbors peace.