1. Introduction (by Julia Fernández
Chiva and Beatriz Lasala
Díaz)
2. Influences on Byron (by Josué Álvarez Conejos and Paola Enguix Fernández)
2.1. Familiar
influences
2.2. Childhood
influences
2.3. Influence
of his education
2.4. Influence
of his travels
2.5. Contextual
influences
2.6.
Bibliography used
3. Byron’s characteristics and
examples (by Jessica
Aguilar Vinyoles and Cristina Camps Pérez)
4. Byronism (by Aina García Coll and Thais Martínez
Alonso)
5. Byron’s Influence on other
poets (by Krysia Cogollos
Latham-Koenig and Mª José Jorquera Hervas)
5.1
Byron’s influence on Shelley and Keats
Byron
had a decisive influence on Shelley, one of his two contemporary fellow
romantic poets. Regular conversation with Byron had an invigorating
effect on Shelley's poetry. While on a boating tour the two took together,
Shelley was inspired to write his Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, often considered his first significant
production since Alastor. A tour of Chamonix in the French Alps inspired Mont Blanc, a difficult
poem in which Shelley pondered questions of historical inevitability and the
relationship between the human mind
and external nature.
Contact with the older and more established poet encouraged Shelley to write Julian and Maddalo,
a lightly disguised rendering of his boat trips and conversations with Byron in
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley#Introduction_to_Byron)
His
influence on Keats is slightly more questionable. Though there was definitely
an animosity between the two of them, it’s hard to say
whether Byron’s harsh criticism had an impact on Keat’s
work. Byron called Keats a “Cockney poet” and made fun of him at every
opportunity. Keats, in turn, voiced his opinion that Byron was
only respected as a poet because of his aristocratic standing. These differences in opinion are based mainly upon the fact that Byron was a follower and
admirer of Pope, and Keats favoured Wordsworth and
Coleridge. Their styles, therefore, clashed, and neither of them liked the
other’s poems. Byron eventually learnt to appreciate Keats, but sadly, only
when Keats had little time left to live.
(http://englishhistory.net/keats/bykeats.html)
The
influence of Byron on later artists is mainly noticeable in Mary Shelley and
John William Polidori, creators of the figures of Frankenstein
and the Vampire respectively. Mary Shelley wrote ‘Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus’,
and Polidori was inspired by a fragmentary story of Byron's to produce ‘The Vampyre’, the progenitor of the romantic
vampire
genre.
5.2. Frankenstein
‘Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus’ is a novel by Mary
Shelley. First published in
During the snowy summer of 1816, Byron
challenged the Shelleys and his personal physician
John William Polidori to each compose a story of
their own, the contest being won by whoever wrote the
scariest tale. Mary conceived an idea after she fell into a waking dream or
nightmare during which she saw "the
pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together."
This was the germ of Frankenstein.
‘The Modern Prometheus’ is the novel's
subtitle (though some modern publications of the work now drop the subtitle,
mentioning it only in an introduction). Prometheus, in some versions of Greek
mythology, was the Titan who created mankind, and
Victor's work by creating man by new means obviously reflects that creative
work. Prometheus was also the bringer of fire who took fire from heaven and
gave it to man. Zeus then punished Prometheus by fixing him to a rock where
each day a predatory bird came to devour his liver.
Prometheus was also a myth told in Latin but
was a very different story. In this version, Prometheus makes man from clay and
water, again a very relevant theme to Frankenstein as Victor rebels against the
laws of nature and as a result is punished by his
creation.
Prometheus' relation to the novel can be interpreted in a number of ways. For Mary Shelley on
a personal level, Prometheus was not a hero but a devil, whom she blamed for
bringing fire to man and thereby seducing the human race to the vice of eating
meat (fire brought cooking which brought hunting and killing). For Romance era
artists in general, Prometheus' gift to man compared with the two great utopian
promises of the 18th century: the Industrial Revolution and the French
Revolution, containing both great promise and potentially unknown horrors.
Byron was particularly
attached to the play ‘Prometheus
Bound’ by Aeschylus, and Percy Shelley would soon write ‘Prometheus Unbound’.
A possible interpretation of the name Victor
derives from the poem ‘Paradise Lost’
by John Milton, a great influence on Shelley (a quotation from Paradise Lost is on the opening page of
Frankenstein and Shelley even allows the monster himself to read it).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein)
5.3. The Vampyre
‘The Vampyre’ is a short novel written by John William Polidori and is a progenitor of the romantic vampire genre
of fantasy fiction.
‘The Vampyre’
was first published on April 1, 1819, by Colburn in the New Monthly Magazine
with the false attribution "A Tale
by Lord Byron." The name of the work's antagonist, Lord
Ruthven, added to this assumption, for that name was originally used in Lady
Caroline Lamb's novel ‘Glenarvon’,
in which a thinly-disguised Byron figure was also
named Lord Ruthven. Despite repeated denials by Byron and Polidori,
the authorship often went unclarified.
The novel was an immediate popular success,
partly because of the Byron attribution and partly because it exploited the
gothic horror predilections of the public. Polidori
transformed the vampire from a character in folklore into the form we recognize
today - an aristocratic fiend who preys among high society.
The story has its genesis in the summer of
1816 too. Lord Byron and his young physician John Polidori
were staying at the Villa Diodati by
Polidori's work had
an immense impact on contemporary sensibilities and ran through numerous editions
and translations. An adaptation appeared in 1820 with Cyprien
Bérard’s novel, ‘Lord
Ruthwen ou les Vampires’,
falsely attributed to Charles Nodier, who himself
then wrote his own version, ‘Le Vampire’,
a play which had enormous success and sparked a "vampire craze"
across Europe. Edgar Allan Poe, Gogol, Alexandre
Dumas and Tolstoy all produced vampire tales, and themes in Polidori's
tale would continue to influence Bram Stoker's ‘Dracula’ and eventually the whole vampire genre.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vampyre)
5.4 Byron’s
influence on other artists
Byron not only influenced his contemporary
fellow authors, and his influence was certainly not
restrained to his natal
(http://www.npg.org.uk/live/prelmad.asp)
In classical music, for
instance, Berlioz adored Byron. To the extent that his second symphony, Harold en Italie is
clearly inspired by Byron’s “Childe Harold”. Rossini composed The Muses’ Lament after Byron’s death to
honour him, and in the published Années de Pèlerinage Liszt prefaces his piece,
“Au lac de Wallenstadt”,
with a quotation from Childe Harold, and
other pieces from it can be also linked to Byronic lore.
(http://www.hberlioz.com/Photos/BerliozPhotos8a.html)
Byron: Life and
Legend by Fiona MacCarthy, Farrar,
2003, p. 550-
552
Byron
also has a major influence on other countries’ Romantic movements. Evgeny Onegin, written
by Pushkin, a romantic Russian poet, clearly mentions Byron and his Childe
Harold, and Onegin, the main character, is obviously based upon the Byronic hero ideal. Through
Pushkin, Byron’s style was passed onto other Russian
authors, such as Turgenev and Lermontov. In
(http://www.wikipèdia.com/Romanticism)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe)
The glamour of
his personality and the iconoclasm of Byron's political and religious views
always made him a focus for dissident youth. More recently Byronism has had its
counterpart in the film stars, rock stars and charismatic revolutionary heroes
of the 20th century including Rudolph Valentino (the cinematic reincarnation of
Byron's Corsair), James Dean, Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison (“bad boys” with a tormented soul) and
Che Guevara, whose fame was spread through
photographs, posters, film and television.
Almost two centuries after his death, Byron lives on
in the popular imagination.
(http://www.npg.org.uk/live/prelmad.asp)
5.5 Bibliography
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley#Introduction_to_Byron)
(http://englishhistory.net/keats/bykeats.html)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vampyre)
(http://www.npg.org.uk/live/prelmad.asp)
(http://www.hberlioz.com/Photos/BerliozPhotos8a.html)
(http://www.wikipèdia.com/Romanticism)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe)
Byron: Life and
Legend by Fiona MacCarthy, Farrar,
2003, p. 550-
552
6. Conclusion (by Manuela
Elisa Blanes Monllor and Mª Llanos García Martínez)