She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellow’d to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

‘SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY-‘ – Lord Byron

As I follow in the footsteps of my late mother, reading all the books she studied to acquire her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Queensland over 50 years ago, the next book on my to-read list was Lord Byron, Selected Letters and Journals, edited by Leslie A. Marchand. When I picked the book from the shelves of my home library, I wondered how long it would be before I made the decision I did not like to make: shelving it, because the book had not captured my reading passion. Surprisingly, six weeks later, I have arrived at the end of the book, and its contents still linger in my mind, as George Gordon Byron, or, to honour his title, Lord Byron, is a riddle wrapped up in a mystery which is wrapped in an enigma. Putting to one side his personal life, which is, in my opinion, irrelevant from the perspective of his standing as one of the highly esteemed members of the romantic era of poets, Lord Byron’s letters and journals reveal a complex person, whose fragility was masked by his various traits that might offend some, yet occasionally amused me. He defied convention, whether at home in England or when he was living abroad, particularly in Venice. However, reading between the lines of his letters and journals, one comprehends that Lord Byron’s promiscuity, particularly with the married women of the Venetian nobility, emanated from an internal universe of forlorn exploration for a woman whose heart and mind were compatible with his, and, perhaps, struggling with his sexuality, which historians opine was a proclivity for bisexuality.

Born on 22 January 1788, his father appears to have wished to call his son ‘William’, but as he remained absent, Byron’s mother named him after her own father, George Gordon of Gight, who was a descendant of James I of Scotland, and, tragically, had died by suicide some years earlier, in 1779. Byron’s mother returned to Aberdeenshire in 1790, and he spent part of his childhood there. His father soon joined them in Aberdeen. Still, the couple promptly separated, and it is reported that Catherine regularly experienced mood swings and bouts of melancholy, which it is surmised to be caused partly by her estranged husband’s continuously borrowing money from her. Byron received his early formal education at Aberdeen Grammar School from January 1795 until his return to England as a 10-year-old, and in 1801, he entered the hallowed halls of Harrow School. Lord Byron was subsequently educated at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. His first anthology, Fugitive Pieces, comprised poems he had written when he was about seventeen, and it was published in 1806, only to be quickly recalled because of its more ‘amorous’ content. However, four copies of that book remained after the others were burned. Following graduation, he travelled extensively in Europe. After the publication of the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812), Byron became a celebrity. He rapidly became the most brilliant star in the dazzling world of Regency London. He was sought after at every society venue, elected to several exclusive clubs, and frequented the most fashionable London drawing-rooms. During this period in England, he produced many works, including The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos (1813), Parisina, and The Siege of Corinth (1815). On the initiative of the composer Isaac Nathan, he produced the Hebrew Melodies between 1814 and 1815, including what became some of his best-known lyrics, including She Walks in Beauty. After several controversial affairs and his failed marriage to Annabella Millbanke, Lord Byron once again sought refuge abroad, living for more than seven years in Italy, particularly in Venice, as well as in Ravenna, Pisa, and Genoa. Indeed, in Ravenna, Byron continued writing Don Juan. During his stay in Italy, Byron frequently visited his friend and fellow poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Towards the end of his short life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence to fight the Ottoman Empire, for which Greeks revere him as a hero. Sadly, he passed away leading a campaign in 1824, at the age of 36, from a fever contracted after the first and second sieges of Missolonghi. Notwithstanding his controversial personal life, there was a tremendous shock in Great Britain when news of Lord Byron’s untimely passing was received. Yet, it would be about eighty years until he was honoured in the poets’ corner of Westminster Abby.

And so, after that brief recitation of Lord Byron’s deeds and life, I return to this remarkable book containing his selected letters and journals. There are far too many letters and journals for me to summarise them, other than my observation at the beginning of this piece that these documents reveal a very complex person, perhaps suffering from melancholy masked by his infidelity and irreverence. Yet, there is a passage from his letter dated 1 June 1818 that was addressed to Thomas Moore, while Byron was living next to the exquisitely beautiful Grand Canal in Venice, which caught my fancy. I thought it was appropriate to share with you, as it captures Byron’s innate and unflappable mastery of language, yet posturing self-assuredness when it came to the art of poetry:

Did you look at the translations of his own (Leigh Hunt), which he prefers to Pope and Cowper, and says so? –– Did you read his skimble-skamble about [Wordsworth] being at the head of his own profession, in the eyes of those who followed it? I thought that Poetry was an art, or an attribute, and not a profession; — but be it one, is that (words deleted yet one envisages them not to be flattering) at the head of your profession in your eyes? I’ll be curst f he is of mine, or ever shall be. He is only one of us (but of us he is not) whose coronation I would oppose.

I could wax lyrical all day about some gems hidden in Byron’s letters and journals, save to say that when one reads them as a whole, one comprehends an inner turmoil that might be traced back to his youth. However, as I commenced this newsletter with the first stanza of, She Walks In Beauty, I shall conclude it with the final stanza of that divine poem:

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocence!