The Enduring Influence of the Byronic Hero on Popular Culture “Let me say one word upon Lord B. He is insane.” Wordsworth On April 19, 1824 George Gordon, the sixth Lord Byron died in Greece. Like Keats, and Shelley before him, Byron’s demise was dramatic and dare one say “romantic.” It triggered shock and grief in the very country he had exiled himself from. Reactions to the news of his death caused Jane Welsh, the future wife of author Thomas Carlyle to write “My God, if they had said that the sun or the moon had gone out of the heavens it could not have struck me with the idea of a more awful and dreary blank…I have felt quite cold and dejected ever since…” Writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton a fellow Byron devotee partook in the veneration. He summed up the devotion he had for Byron by stating “So much of us died with him (Byron), that the notion of his death had something of the unnatural, of the impossible.” (MacCarthy555- 560). With his “mad bad and dangerous to know” reputation, many are familiar with Byron’s name even if unfamiliar with his works. Byron’s name instantly instills gothic images of a lonely dark entity, one who is tormented and damaged. He presents a figure that causes discomfort and anxiety when in his presence, but is yet seductive and alluring. Even Byron’s contemporaries found him almost supernatural. His androgynous appeal fascinated both men and women. After meeting Byron Coleridge commented “If you had seen Lord Byron, you could scarcely believe him. So beautiful a countenance I scarcely ever saw.” (MacCarthy 270). Walter Scott who found Byron equally as fascinating mused Byron had “walked amongst men as something superior to ordinary mortality and whose powers were beheld with wonder and something approaching terror…” (Scott 343-44). Byron himself confessed to being such “… a strange mélange of good and evil, that it would be difficult to describe me.” (Greenblatt 616). So instead of trying, he created a dark character,
who was sadistic and sublime, who frightened and allured. One who was socially unacceptable but one worthy of redemption as if a fallen angel. Byron’s fame after the 1812 publication of Childe Harold had surpassed any before him. Byron himself was surprised by his sudden celebrity stating “I awoke one morning and found myself famous.” (Rogers 297). Public readings of Childe Harold caused “Men and women alike [to weep]…popular illustrations of the gloomy exile Harold (usually looking exactly like Byron and often contemplating a gravestone) abound.” ( McConnell 24). Byron had become a cultural icon in his own time as well as those that followed. However it was in the last few years of his life that Byron managed to produce more dramatic pieces than all of his contemporaries combined. (McDonnell). Among them, his most Byronic creation, the deeply disturbed Manfred. With gothic settings, supernatural elements and the mysterious, brooding hero, the Faustian Manfred is the ultimate definition of Byronic. The drama is considered to be an autobiographical account of Byron’s affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. Act one finds the hero in a “Gothic Gallery” not unlike one Byron would have found in his ancestral home, Newstead Abbey. It’s this setting which Manfred laments his lost love, Astarte, concluding “Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most/Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth.” (Byron 125) That truth in Byron’s case is what forced his exile from England. Byron’s harshest contemporary critic was poet Robert Southey. Southey, who later become poet laureate, accused Byron of “bringing a stigma on English literature…pervert[ing] great talents to the worse purposes … divest[ing] himself of every claim of respect.” (Craik n.p.) This thought carried over to the Victorians, which in spite of Byron’s popularity, anyone, especially women, who read Byron’s poems “seemed [on] a sure path to damnation.” (Elfenbein 56).
In 1918, writer Virginia Woolf was “…amused (by) how easily (she could) imagine the effect he had upon women – especially upon rather stupid or uneducated women unable to stand up to him.” Woolf (as cited by McConnell 472). And affect them, he did. After Byron ended a brief affair with Lady Caroline Lamb, she became so obsessed with him, Byron married Anne Isabella Milbanke just to get away from her. The marriage fell apart within a year. Lady Byron filed for divorce and custody of their daughter, based on the grounds of Byron’s alleged cruelty and incestuous affair with Augusta Leigh. Byron’s letter to Lady Byron, dated February 8th, 1816 is full of melancholic temperament. “All I can say seems useless-and all I could say might be no less unavailing-yet I still cling to the wreck of my hopes, before they sink forever. Were you then never happy with me?” (Byron 130). Manfred, echoes Byron’s plea “say though loath’st me not,” as he states “The deadliest sin is to love as we have loved.” (Byron 147).
Byron
quickly healed his pride and later in that year took up with Claire Clairmont, Mary Shelley’s half- sister which resulted in yet another scandal for him. Even a century later Byron was still viewed by some as a reprobate. In 1924 Bishop Herbert E. Ryle, dean of Westminster Abbey, declined the request for a plaque recognizing Byron, to be laid in the Abbey. Ryle denounced Byron for his “licentious verse” and as a man who had a “worldwide reputation for immorality.” Byron finally received his plaque in 1968 thanks to the efforts of another poet laureate, Cecil Day-Lewis (Tommasini 490). Despite the scandals, accusations of depravity and the attempts to vilify Byron, he or perhaps his Byronic traits have managed to survive and continue to have an influence on modern culture. The Byronic hero can be seen in just about every vampire novel, especially well represented by Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire and Tom Holland’s Lord of the Dead as well as
Stephanie Meyers Twilight. He’s been embodied by a variety musicians ranging from Jim Morrison of the 60’s blues based rock band The Doors to Morrissey of the 1980’s alternative band, The Smiths, to 1990’s goth/industrial musician Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Perhaps though, where the Byronic hero has the most influence is in film and television. Characters like Brandon Lee’s tortured Eric Draven from The Crow, Alan Rickman’s ever gloomy Professor Snape from Harry Potter and Hugh Laurie’s self –destructive House are few of the many. However, one of the most captivating Byronic heroes to appear recently is a character whose initial origin was never intended to be Byronic. The character of Sherlock Holmes as created by Arthur Conan Doyle was not without Byronistic qualities. His cynical arrogance and his loathing of social institutions along with his high level intelligence and drug use did give Holmes a Byronistic flavor, but it was almost certainly not Conan Doyle’s intent to make him Byronic. Doyle’s Sherlock was a man built of logic and science. One who based theories on facts, statistics and material evidence. Holmes was a man who appreciated art and music, but had no time for nature or personal relationships; things Byron’s aesthetic perspectives would have found distasteful. On his first meeting with Watson, Holmes warns his future flat mate “I get in the dumps at times and don’t open my mouth for days on end” (Doyle 25). For Holmes “all emotions, and (love) particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind…as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position” (Doyle 5). Compared to Benedict Cumberbatch’s interpretation in the BBC’s Sherlock, who expresses to his Watson, “Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.” (Sherlock) suggests this Holmes may have had experience with relationships and like Byron and his Manfred was somewhat damaged by them. This is illuminated not only by the tension between Holmes and the love sick Molly Hooper, who is neither “stupid” or “uneducated”, but between
Holmes and Watson as well. This tension gives Sherlock a more humane quality which enhances his magnetism, something that was absent in the original character. In Sherlock, Holmes and Watson drop the formality of referring to each other by surnames. Instead of “Holmes and Watson”, they are now “Sherlock and John” which suggests a more intimate relationship between the characters. With this new intimacy come risks for the character to be emotionally wounded. More chances for Holmes to exhibit his fears, his bipolar tendencies, and struggles with integrity. More chance to exhibit his Byronistic qualities. Especially when Sherlock states “I may be on the side of the angels, but do not think for one moment I am one of them.” (Sherlock) These qualities make this 21st Century reboot of Holmes one we can identify with and one we admire because he is Byronistic. Sherlock, is set in modern times, with modern thoughts and concepts, but yet this Holmes shares many of the traits of the romantic ideal that his predecessors did not. Like Manfred, Sherlock appears to be battling an intense inner struggle. With Manfred, we know his internal conflict; with Sherlock, we do not. This unknown factor adds to the mysterious and dark aspect of the character. Unlike his highly successful predecessors, each who brought their own interpretation to the role, it is Cumberbatch’s mix of compassionate and cruel attributes that make his Sherlock so alluring. Like Byron “he cannot be reintegrated into society, even if he has benefitted that society with his heroic actions.” (Stein 2). Like Byron, Sherlock Holmes has become a cultural icon in his own era as well as in the modern one. The Byronic Hero represents exploration into the darker side that resides in us. It’s this darker side of the human condition, the separation from conventional society, the introspective hedonism, this is what makes the Byronic Hero so enduring.
Works Cited Bone, Drummond. The Cambridge Companion to Byron. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.
Byron, George Gordon Byron, and Frank D. McConnell. Byron's Poetry: Authoritative Texts, Letters and Journals, Criticism, Images of Byron. New York: Norton, 1978. Print. Craik, Henry, ed. English Prose. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916; Bartleby.com, 2010. www.bartleby.com/209/. Doyle, Arthur Conan, and Leslie S. Klinger. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005. Print. Elfenbein, Andrew. Byron and the Victorians. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. Print. MacCarthy, Fiona. Byron: Life and Legend. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. Print. Rogers, Pat. The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford UP, 1987. Print. Scott, Walter. "Death of Lord Byron." The Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott: Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Novelists, and Other Distinguished Persons. Vol. 4. Robert Cadell, 1834. Print. Stein, Atara. The Byronic Hero in Film, Fiction and Television. Carbondale: SIU, 2004. Print. Tommasini, Anthony. Virgil Thomson: Composer on the Aisle. W.W. Norton, 1997. 490. Print.
Works Consulted Adams, Guy “ The Sherlock Files” (Print) Cochran, Peter “ Why did Byron Hate Southey?” – a paper read to the Newstead Abbey Byron Society. (PDF) Parille, Ken. "All the Rage: Wordsworth's Attack on Byron in Lines Addressed to a Noble Lord." Papers on Language & Literature 37.3 (2001): 255. Literature Resource Center. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.