The Scandalous Life of a Genius - Lord Byron
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- čas přidán 24. 04. 2021
- George Gordon, Lord Byron, the Romantic poet par excellence, lived an eventful and scandalous life. The poet became a celebrity over night after publishing Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
Today we will be finding out more about Byron’s short lived but intense life.
The images used are in the Public Domain.
Music - YT Audio Library.
Sources/ Further reading
Byron by John Nichol (via gutenberg.org)
The Works of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals. Author: Lord Byron, Editor: Roland E. Prothero 1898 (via gutenberg.org)
Canto the Fourth - Don Juan by Lord Byron (via gutenberg.org)
Recently there was a documentary about Byron posted on youtube. It was mostly about a man reliving the debauchery attributed to Byron. I found it most distasteful. Thank you for posting this thoughtful and informative video. To me this is much more entertaining than that so called documentary.
Thank you so much. I find Byron fascinating, his wit, humour and irony, a subtle mind. Thank you also for being a subscriber.
He was not the kind of person we would enjoy today. Should he be a successful writer in our day and age, once his private life was known he would be shunned
Lori - I think I know the "documentary" you're referring to. I watched about five minutes of it before clicking it off in disgust. This one is so much better!
@@livesandhistories Lady Oxfort did she had conections to the De Vere family the Dukes of Oxfort
I agree - I am sick of this moral agency that a lot of CZcamsrs wield around like it's their duty. Makes me sick in fact.
Here in Greece, Lord Byron is one of the most respectful people due to his contribución in the Greek revolution against the Turks .
He gave money and his life to support the Greeks, and we are really grateful for that.
A city area in Athens is named Byron
How wonderful! Thank you for sharing this here.
Byron's surviving daughter Ada Lovelace assisted Charles Babbage in developing the Analytical Engine, the world's first computer design a century ahead of its time! (At one point she spotted a tiny error and saved him months of work...)
Ada's mother was intelligent, her father had a brilliant mind. No wonder, Ada was such a clever woman. Thank you for watching.
I believe Ada Lovelace was Byron’s most wonderful poem, a bridge leading his memory beyond the narrow confines of the Romantic Period. But that’s just me.😁
More Greek-British connnection trivia... Boolean algebra is used in all modern computers today. Brit George Booles original intent was to develop a mathematical notation to describe Aristotlean logic
I remember when I first heard of Lord Byron. I learnt about him as the scandalous father of Ada Lovelace, and learnt much later that he was a more famous poet on his own. I haven't read English literature in a while. I enjoyed this video. Such a lovely one. Thank you for summarizing his life in this video.
Thank you for your comment and for your support. Try and read Byron's poems. They're full of irony and wit.
I will. Thank you for the suggestion.
Too bad he never came to faith in Jesus Christ and is now burning in Hell
Oh, I didn’t know he was an atheist. Whatever the case, we cannot be sure what the condition of dead men are.
Despite his personal-peccadilloes & moral-deficiencies, Byron, in the end, must-be judged by measuring his life against the ideals of the Romantic Age, the ideals he so-deeply cherished & aspired to carry-out but in which he rarely succeeded---except-once. By making the Greek War of Independence his personal-cause, Byron at long-last found, for him, the ultimate Romantic-cause. This was in-contrast to Wordsworth, who, inspired-initially by the French Revolution, an event he experienced first-hand while living in Paris, grew disenchanted & frightened for-his-life, returning to England as soon as he could. Although Wordsworth may've come to realize the dangerous, or simply-impractical, excesses of Romanticism, Byron took-up the Greek-cause with passion, serving selflessly(as far as I know) but briefly, dying-heroically, and in true-Romantic style, during the Siege of Missalonghi.
I agree with your comment, Jack. Thank you for watching.
Well said Jack, tho words worth a bean are best unstalked, for the moment. What was immoral, as he was faithful to his one wife?
Not that we're judging anything here.
Bit of a dasher, our jack.
I've got an 1909 copy of his complete works but i've gotta admit his life is so much more interesting to me than his poetry
Too bad he never came to faith in Jesus Christ and is now burning in Hell
@@56pjr Maybe he converted to Islam and he's going to be rewarded access to paradise who knows?! Jesus - peace be upon him - is a mere prophet who preached and practiced what he preached which is believing in one God only.
@@vehement-critic_q8957Islam is the religion of Satan
I recall the description “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” used as the title of an album by the British group Dead or Alive in the late 80s.
Thank you for the video.
Thank you for watching.
Didn't Roger Taylor's The Cross also put an album out but this name as well?
Lady Caroline Lamb's remark about Byron. She was married to Melbourne but had an affair with Byron. He was a lovely.
Hey, the first album I listened from them. I loved it.
i’m currently working on a psychoanalytical criticism essay of lord byron, one of my favorite romantic poets! this video was great to watch and super informative :-)
Wonderful! Thank you for watching, Annabelle.
I read Byron's poetry in its Chinese translation when I was very young. Later I read the original. His poetry is just amazingly beautiful. Thanks for the story.
I just love Byron's poetry. I am so glad you liked the story. Thank you for watching.
Thank you. Childe Harold and Don Juan are my favorites. Your video has inspired me to read him again.
I like his Don Juan a lot. Thank you for watching.
My father once told me that we are descendants from this gentleman.
It would make sense. I bought my current car because I took one look at it, and could tell that it had my name on it.
The guy I bought it from was named Byron, and it was written on the registration plates.
My favourite campground is at a place called Ada River.
I've been involved in local protest movements. My father has been a poet all of his life.
I'm sure there's more, just finding it interesting to learn a little about it all.
And I also find it interesting to learn about your little story.
Yes but how many illegitimate children do you have running around?
Beautifully done and narrated. Thank you!
I am so glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for watching.
Brilliant 👏 beautifully narrated!
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing about Byron. He surely was a fascinating man, with great poetry. I admire how much he traveled in his short life, ti think that's what inspired his poems. So sad he died so young.
A gifted poet and a brilliant mind, I agree. Thank you for your comment Ambreen, much appreciated.
Great video!! 👍👍👍
Thank you! 👍
Well.... all I can say is that life was and is short and not always sweet; so I suppose people with means to live well, DID!
It just shows that people expressed their opinions back then, just like they do today!
Nothing has changed; basically it is same game, different players today! 😉
Excellent videos, thank you for your work and knowledge! ❤️
I love the artwork/paintings that you insert! 👍👑🌹
Thank you for watching, Katherine.
I loved this video - thank you.
So nice to hear that - thank you.
I have heard the name Lord Byron often mentioned but did not know the story of his life apart from the wet weekend where Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein… Thank you for sharing XX
Thank you for watching, Pamela.
So sad for me ofthat Farkenstein is more important to you than Greek war of independens
@@smaragdazervou3135 you are prejudging me that’s not the case at all all I said was that is all I knew about him
I believe Byron was a lost soul. A man who tried so firmly to ground himself to the sands, but as ever the waves come to wash it away.
Well said. Thank you for watching.
Very touching life story.
Well read I enjoyed it
Love your narrative voice
Thank you for saying that.
Very good presentation.
Thank you very much.
Ahh, Lord Byron is such an interesting character. This is actually the third time I watch this video and it still is kinda hard for me to figure out what to really think and say about him.
For me, personally, loyalty and devotion are incredibly important, and if i may say so myself, they are very central to who I am.
I despise the act of cheating on your partner, I can say that for certain.
But at the same time, I know that life is not always as easy as that and things, people, situations are rarely just "good" or just "evil".
It is difficult, difficult for me to figure out what to really think of him. Once again, the ability to have a conversation with Lord Byron would be invaluable, to at least try to find out who he really was. Especially considering that it's not quite clear which sources about him can be trusted and which can't, since some of the rumours spread about him may or may not have been exaggerated by jealous or heartbroken "ex-affairs" (I can't even come up with a better word right now, please forgive me), for example.
His poetry is in most cases simply brilliant, though I should mention that I have a really soft spot for poetry of the Romantic era in general.
Which leads to a sort of difficult, certainly controversial, and especially nowadays still highly relevant topic:
If the creator/author of something (a piece of art, for example) is ... questionable, perhaps criminal and despisable, should we disregard the creations of that person? Or can we admire and benefit from something separately from the person it orginates from?
This is not only relevant to the arts, but for example to medicine as well. As far as i know, at least certain parts of modern medicine and psychology base upon the results of experiments that are, again, at best questionable and at worst crimes against humanity and/or nature.
Again, very difficult and controversial topic, rightfully so, but also very important.
And since this comment seems full of controversy, i also want to briefly touch on the following point:
I have seen some comments that accuse you of being "homophobic" because of not mentioning his bisexuality and so on.
Whilst i respect the opinion of others and the topics of acceptance and tolerance are, again, incredibly important to me and a core part of my own personality, i have to respectfully disagree with those kinds of comments. I think that accusing you of homophobia just because you didn't explicitly mention his bisexuality would be the same as accusing you of hating animals if you didn't explicitly mention his love for them.
I'm not sure why it felt so important to say this, but it did. I think that these sorts of accusations are, once again, an incredibly difficult topic nowadays. It is important to take it very seriously, but sometimes I feel that on the other hand these accusations are in some cases being made way way too prematurely.
Maybe it is because I love your videos so much, maybe in light of that one could call me biased, but from what I can tell from your videos, you seem to me like a very empathic, understanding and open person. You seem to have a great sense for the thoughts and feelings and personalities of those historical figures, you seem to care for who they really were. I find it very unlikely that someone like you would be "homophobic".
Again, not sure why I had the urge to say this. I, as an autist, have a talent for making big things out of small "details", I guess.
On a more positive note:
Lord Byron's daughter, Ada Lovelace, is actually a kind of special character for me. I have studied computer science and am a software developer, and Ada is credited by many to have been the first "programmer" in history. Though I guess I must admit that this is also a point of controversy, since some reject that and instead argue that Babbage himself was the first to write an actual program and Ada just contributed or even only published it. It seems that everything lord Byron touched turned into controversy (how many times did I use this word now ... ?) somehow.
Ada Lovelace herself described her work as "poetical science", which is something that resonates a lot with me, as someone who is hugely interested in all kinds of sciences, but also art - and the connection of art and science. She seems also to have been the first person to see the "Analytical Machine" invented by Babbage as more than just a calculator for numbers. She saw potential for music to be played or even composed by a machine, for example - and look where we are now :)
So maybe the question if she really was "the first programmer" isn't even all that important - instead I see her as a visionary and as a creative spirit who understood the potential of something that ended up changing pretty much *everything* in our world.
Well, anyways, thanks a lot for all your videos! I very much enjoyed this one, just as I enjoy all your other ones :)
I wish you all the best!
Byron’s poetry is simply sublime. As an individual, he was such an intriguing character in many ways. I began to understand him better by reading a lot of his letters. After that, his poems made even more sense to me.
The topic of Byron’s sexuality was not included in this video simply because the sources I used for writing the script did not mention it. There was no other reason whatsoever.
Ada had a brilliant mind, like her father, I’d say. Also, her mother was a very intelligent lady. “Poetical science” - brilliantly expressed. I like that.
Thank you for saying you have watched this video repeatedly :)
@@livesandhistories Often, the simplest explanation is also the correct one. I am sorry for bringing up that topic, once again I hope my stream of throughts did not make you feel uncomfortable in any way.
I have just checked and discovered that collections of his letters (and his poems!) are actually available and easily accessible online since the US Copyright has run out. Even some original newspaper articles about him and his parliamentary speeches.
On one hand hand, I love that these sources are available to anyone who wants to get to know Lord Byron a little better and try to learn about him, but somehow it feels a little ... "strange", for lack of a better word, to read his personal letters, if you know what i mean.
He might be long dead, but still i wonder how he would feel about that. About me or anyone 200 years later reading what can at times be very very personal and what was originally only intended for two particular pairs of eyes.
I must admit, about Ada's mother I have net yet learned much, but I would enjoy to find out more about her. I wonder what she would have to say :)
Oh my, I think I will dive into these letters and poems now. Thank you so much for giving me that impulse!
The problem with Byron: you can't be romantic in the sense of deep love and change women like you change your socks.
Indeed. Thank you for watching.
why not we are all animals they do it why cant we
i can love millions
@@liveseldiesel2628 you can lust millions lol. Not love.
He wasn't romantic. That was the name given to the age. He was ironic, for he knew the shallow. He swam that deep like some hero he imagined, without realising he was. Although he liked to think so, no true poet ever does.
Thank you.
In talking about the scandal of Byron's life, you could have mentioned that many historians believe he was bisexual.
he was so handsome, a 19th century errol flynn.
I have in my possession a book published in the early 1800s about Lord Byron. It's mainly poetry. It's in incredibly rough shape but all the text is legible. The binding is just heavily aged and worn.
A treasure that has survived so many years ... amazing!
As a Greek, I will eternally be greatful to poet Lord Byron for loving Hellenism and helping free us from the Ottomans. I even have his birthday marked in my calendar./ Every year I read up a little bit more about his life on his birthday to honor and remember his existrence. Now when ti comes to some contemporary Brits like David Cameron notsomuch.
The former PM of the former Roman Poession of Britain, mocked Greeks for refusing to ridiculously recognize our slavic neighbours as "Macedonians". Even today he patronizingly and dishonerably plays stupid as they try to narrate themselves into apparently antihellenic founders of the Hellenistic period to hide his mistake. Unfortunately there is a lot of that behavior going around these days.
I first heard of Lord Byron when I was 11 yrs old in the show Little House on the Prairie, I thought it was a fictional name. Now at 42...he was real 🤭
My whole life, the knawing spectre of the love I could have, met only at the absence of ever being known.
Debauchery and the excesses of life.
I've just bought "Byron: The Flawed Angel" by Phyllis Grosskurth, interesting person.
Sounds interesting. The name of that book seems appropriate for Byron's personality. Thank you for watching.
Too bad he never came to faith in Jesus Christ and is now burning in Hell
@@56pjr girl what ???
Ja obozuvam negovata poezija 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷pozdrav od Skopje Makedonija
Loved the historical video, what a great way to remember our past descendants.
Glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for watching Robin.
A life well lived;)
I often wonder(just for the heck of it!) ...how his ,and our,lives would have been altered if he'd had access to the internet..same with Einstein,Etc...
One from the heroes of Greece is he.
He was indeed. Thank you for watching Nikos.
Don Juan.... Pronounced like Huan please. Interesting biography. Thank you.
Rupert Brooke had a similarly tragic ending.
Show the most recent like mine recently
Where is the love Byron?
Some "ladies"
Getting V.D. Was very stupid. He must have been a drinker. Was he?
The paintings are great and beautiful details. They have light, portraits, boats and Venice. The world was beautiful then. The night had too be hard to light then.
Byron is the Einstein of poetry...both gnar and rad
He was a very learned letch! He was true only to his own lusts and nothing and no one else, sadly!
Genius?😅
By dint of censoring it, this is very homophobic, since after Byron left England for the last time, he lived a bisexual life, in fact preferring boys. Also unmentioned is that Annabella, whom he called "the Princess of Parallelograms," was a mathematician, and their daughter, it's said, was so scientifically brilliant that she laid the groundwork for what eventually became computers.
Nobody is afraid of gay folks. Don't you people have better sh!! to do than always faint offense and outrage? It's so old already.
He was undoubtedly a great artist in terms of his poetry but he was otherwise an absolute degenerate and debauch .......totally without character .
You're right, of course, but what I wouldn't've given to be him! No, I'm speaking for myself but the poet did truly-epitomize the Romantic Age, probably my favorite poetic-period. Byron seems to have been a restless-spirit. Early-fame & sudden-wealth went to his head while women threw themselves at him. He created a substantial-body of work, to be sure, but its creator was a distracted-soul, finding it difficult to focus on any-one endeavor for long. He's hard to like on a personal-level, though he's just-as-hard to DISlike---thus, the contradiction of the man. Of course, like all artists, Byron should be judged on his work rather than his personality-traits; much of what he wrote, though, was intricately-intertwined with the wanderlust of his travels & caddish, adulterous-behavior towards women, thus making what he wrote inseparable from the public-image of the man-himself. A great, perhaps the greatest, symbol of the Romantic Age, no question, but a deeply-flawed symbol nonetheless. His less than admirable-qualities, however, have led, down to our own-time, to a general shrugging-off of his bad-boy persona, which tends simply to be summarized with a wink-and-a-nod to "that's just Byron being Byron". Thus, lamentably, it shall ever-be.
Byron and the jews... my name lordbyron96... through the process of transmigration.
Good looking? I think not. Probably a narcissist as well. Great writing, though.
No, just a free spirit with flaws in a very repressive age. A bisexual in an era when that could get you killed. Abandoned by his father and abused by his mother, and he lived on quite emotionally damaged.
@@liambrammall1764 ...and a torturous childhood,physically and mentally.The man did well for himself..lived with demons...did the damned best he could.Let he who is without sin....
Not a single word of the several poems he wrote about his male companions. In other words, his gay experiences.
The history that they teach you is not always history that in reality existed. What a shame. What a shame.