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Byronic hero
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Byronic hero is an idealized, but flawed, character exemplified in the life and writings of Lord Byron, characterized by his ex-lover Lady Caroline Lamb as being "mad, bad and dangerous to know".[1] The Byronic hero first appears in Byron's semi-autobiographical epic narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-18). The Byronic hero has the following characteristics:
- conflicting emotions, bipolar tendencies, or moodiness
- self-critical and introspective
- struggles with integrity
- a distaste for social institutions and social norms
- being an exile, an outcast, or an outlaw
- has "dark" attributes not normally associated with heroes
- struggle with sexual identity (homosexual, sleeps with many women, etc.)
- a lack of respect for rank and privilege
- a troubled past
- being cynical, demanding, and/or arrogant
- often self-destructive
- loner, often rejected from society
After Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, the Byronic hero made an appearance in many of Byron's other works, including his series of poems on Oriental themes: The Giaour (1813), The Corsair (1814) and Lara (1814); and his closet play Manfred (1817).
Byron's influence was manifested by many authors and artists of the Romantic movement and by writers of Gothic fiction during the 19th century. The Byronic hero provides the title character of Glenarvon (1816), by Byron's erstwhile lover Lady Caroline Lamb, and The Vampyre (1819) by Polidori. Heathcliff from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847) and Rochester from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847) and Severus Snape and Sirius Black from JK Rowling's Harry Potter series are other examples. [2]
Scholars have also drawn parallels between the Byronic Hero and the solipsistic heroes of Russian literature. In particular, Alexander Pushkin's famed character, Eugene Onegin echoes many of the attributes seen in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," particularly, Onegin's solitary brooding and disrespect for traditional privilege. The first stages of Pushkin's poetic novel "Onegin" appeared twelve years after Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage', and Byron was of obvious influence (Vladimir Nabokov argued in his "Commentary to Eugene Onegin" that Pushkin had read Byron during his years in exile just prior to composing "Onegin"). The same character themes continued to influence Russian literature, particularly after Mikhail Lermontov invigorated the Byronic Hero through the character Pechorin in his 1839 novel A Hero of Our Time.
The Byronic hero is also featured in many different contemporary novels, and it is clear that Lord Byron's work continues to influence modern literature as the precursor of a commonly encountered type of anti-hero. The lead character, Stephen Dedalus of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is one of the more notorious recent heroes of this genre. Edmond Dantes is an example of a byronic hero.
- Hero
- Tragic flaw
- Anti-hero
- List of fictional anti-heroes
- Tragic hero
- Romantic hero
- Mary Sue
- Alison Johnson
- ^ Jonathamn David Gross (2001). Byron: The Erotic Liberal. Rowman & Littlefield, 148. ISBN 0742511626.
- ^ Joyce Millman To Sir, With Love: How Fan Fiction Transformed Professor Snape from a Greasy Git to a Byronic Hero...Who's Really, Really into S/M from "Mapping the World of Harry Potter", Mercedes Lackey (ed), BenBella Books, Dallas. "Rowling has modeled Snape on more than just a nasty teacher from her childhood. He fits, amusingly and perfectly, this description of Schedoni, the charismatic villain from Ann Radcliffe's influential 1797 Gothic novel The Italian: "Among his associates no one loved him, many disliked him and more feared him.. His figure was striking...and as he stalked along, wrapped in the black garments of his order, there was something terrible in its air; something almost super-human...An habitual gloom and severity prevailed over the deep lines of his countenance; and his eyes were so piercing that they seemed to penetrate, at a single glance, into the hearts of men and to read their most secret thoughts." In his seminal 1962 study The Byronic Hero: Types and Prototypes, scholar Peter L. Thorlev Jr. writes of the Gothic villain archetype, "An air of mystery is his dominant trait and characteristic of his acts. Frequently, it is increased by an aura of past secret sins." Remind you of any Potions Master you know?"