Among all the poets that England has presented to the world, Gordon Byron is one of the most famous. During his lifetime, he was very popular, and he repeatedly challenged himself to prove what he was capable of. Moreover, even such an active lifestyle did not stop Byron from creating surprisingly subtle and deep poems, imbued with lyrics and emotions.
His ancestors came from France, but long before the birth of the parents of the great poet, they moved to England. On the paternal side, Byron had Scottish blood. His ancestors on the father’s side were named Byron-Gordon. Moreover, their surname initially sounded like “Burun”, but over many generations it has transformed into “Byron”. Noble family does not always go hand in hand with financial viability. The poet’s family was not rich, so his childhood passed in poverty. During the revolution in England, Byron’s ancestors remained faithful to the royal throne, for which later they were granted the titles of barons and peers, that is, Lords. In his youth, Byron constantly stood up for the younger ones, for which he was nicknamed the Knight. Gordon Byron published his first collection of poems at the age of 19.
All his life he constantly fell in love with one woman, then with another, and each time he loved, as for the first time. But his first love fell when he was only ten years old, and he fell in love with his own cousin. When they told young Byron that she was engaged, he had a real hysterical seizure. At one time Byron managed to travel fairly well, and even live in Greece, Switzerland and Italy. The poet was inclined to fullness, and the prospect of getting fat terrified him, so he tirelessly exhausted himself with physical exercises. At the age of 21, Byron argued that he would cross the Tagus River near the estuary, despite the rapid flow and several miles wide. And swam! Byron was widely known for his lyric poems, but he also published quite a few venomous satirical works. The poem “Child-Harold” made him not only famous, but also rich. On the first day after its publication, about 14 thousand copies were sold.
When the revolution began in Greece, Byron at his own expense equipped a warship and personally went to help the rebels. Therefore, to this day, the Greeks revere him as a national hero. Gordon Byron was noticeably limping, and therefore did not give himself a descent, and tried to fix the lameness by doing a variety of sports – climbing, swimming, shooting, horse racing and even boxing. Byron’s influence on poetry as a whole was so great that his work laid the foundation for byronism, a new direction in this literary genre. His first publication was defeated by critics. However, he himself got acquainted with it only a year later, during which time he wrote many other works. Later, Byron himself noticed that he was lucky that he did not read the review immediately, because such a cold reception could discourage his love of literature.
The poet was married, but his wife left him. And she did this without warning – while setting off on a journey, she informed Byron in a letter that their relationship was over. When he was a student and lived with other students at the University of Cambridge, he got himself a teddy bear. University officials could not do anything about it, because the charter prohibited only cats and dogs, not pets in general. Gordon Byron and Mikhail Lermontov had a common ancestor, Margaret Lermont. After the death of the poet in Greece, where he then lived, his remains were transported to England, where they were buried.
