Lord Byron: The Life and Legacy of the Most Famous Romantic Poet

*Includes pictures*Includes quotes*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading“I am such a strange mélange of good and evil that it would be difficult to describe me.” – Lord Byron“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” – Lady Caroline Lamb’s description of Lord ByronLord Byron’s very name conjures up visions of the Romantic movement and outlandishly dressed bohemians, for if Alfred, Lord Tennyson was the poetic darling of the masses, Byron was the hero of the hedonists. While the traditional English literary hero was a nobleman rescuing a damsel in distress, Byron created the anti-hero, a man plagued by self-doubt and hidden sorrow. At the same time, his hero was also capable of facing reality once he had wrestled through his own angst, and even of occasionally acting nobly in the great tradition of the author’s Puritan forebears.Whereas poets like Wordsworth and Browning were easy to love, Lord Byron inspired a certain amount of fear among the upper classes, and pious