Byronic hero
Encyclopedia
The Byronic hero is an idealised but flawed character
exemplified in the life and writings of English Romantic
poet Lord Byron. It was characterised by Lady Caroline Lamb
, later a lover of Byron's, as being "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". The Byronic hero first appears in Byron's semi-autobiographical
epic narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
(1812–1818).
(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. Lord Byron was the model for the title character of Glenarvon
(1816) by Byron's erstwhile lover Lady Caroline Lamb
and for Lord Ruthven
in The Vampyre
(1819) by Byron's personal physician, Polidori. Captain Wentworth in Persuasion
by Jane Austen
(1818), Claude Frollo from Victor Hugo
's The Hunchback of Notre Dame
(1831), Heathcliff
from Emily Brontë
's Wuthering Heights
, Edmond Dantes from Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo
(1844), (1847), Rochester from Charlotte Brontë
's Jane Eyre
(1847), Dorian Gray
from The Picture of Dorian Gray
(1890) by Oscar Wilde
, and James Steerforth
from Charles Dickens
's David Copperfield
(1849–1850) are other later 19th-century examples of Byronic heroes.
Scholars have also drawn parallels between the Byronic hero and the solipsist 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 Eugene 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 Eugene 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 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 antihero. The lead character, Stephen Dedalus
, of James Joyce
's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
(1914–1916) is one of the most famous literary heroes of this genre. Erik, the Phantom from Gaston Leroux
's Phantom of the Opera (1909–1910) is another well-known example from the early twentieth century.
Character (arts)
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
exemplified in the life and writings of English Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
poet Lord Byron. It was characterised by Lady Caroline Lamb
Lady Caroline Lamb
The Lady Caroline Lamb was a British aristocrat and novelist, best known for her affair with Lord Byron in 1812. Her husband was the 2nd Viscount Melbourne, the Prime Minister...
, later a lover of Byron's, as being "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". The Byronic hero first appears in Byron's semi-autobiographical
Autobiographical novel
An autobiographical novel is a form of novel using autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fiction elements. The literary technique is distinguished from an autobiography or memoir by the stipulation of being fiction...
epic narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe". The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks...
(1812–1818).
Characteristics
The Byronic hero typically exhibits several of the following traits:- ArrogantHubrisHubris , also hybris, means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power....
- Cunning and able to adaptAdaptive behaviorAdaptive behavior is a type of behavior that is used to adjust to another type of behavior or situation. This is often characterized by a kind of behavior that allows an individual to change an unconstructive or disruptive behavior to something more constructive. These behaviors are most often...
- CynicalCynicism (contemporary)Cynicism is an attitude or state of mind characterized by a general distrust of other's apparent motives, or a general lack of faith or hope in the human race. It is a form of jaded negativity, and other times, realistic criticism or skepticism...
- Disrespectful of rank and privilege
- Emotionally conflicted, bipolarBipolar disorderBipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
, or moodyMood disorderMood disorder is the term designating a group of diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classification system where a disturbance in the person's mood is hypothesized to be the main underlying feature... - Having a distaste for social institutions and norms
- Having a troubled past or suffering from an unnamed crime
- Intelligent and perceptive
- Jaded, world-weary
- Mysterious, magnetic and charismatic
- Seductive and sexually attractive
- Self-critical and introspective
- Self-destructiveSelf-destructive behaviourIn human context, self-destructive behaviour is a widely used phrase that conceptualises certain kinds of destructive acts as belonging to the self. It also has the property that it characterises certain kinds of self-inflicted acts as destructive...
- Socially and sexually dominant
- Sophisticated and educated
- Struggling with integrityIntegrityIntegrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions...
- Treated as an exileExileExile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
, outcastSocial stigmaSocial stigma is the severe disapproval of or discontent with a person on the grounds of characteristics that distinguish them from other members of a society.Almost all stigma is based on a person differing from social or cultural norms...
, or outlawOutlawIn historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute...
History
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 GiaourThe Giaour
"The Giaour" is a poem by Lord Byron first published in 1813 and the first in the series of his Oriental romances. "The Giaour" proved to be a great success when published, consolidating Byron's reputation critically and commercially.-Background:...
(1813), The Corsair
The Corsair
The Corsair was a semi-autobiographical tale in verse by Lord Byron in 1814 , which was extremely popular and influential in its day, selling ten thousand copies on its first day of sale...
(1814) and Lara (1814); and his closet play Manfred
Manfred
Manfred is a dramatic poem written in 1816–1817 by Lord Byron. It contains supernatural elements, in keeping with the popularity of the ghost story in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Romantic closet drama...
(1817).
Byron's influence was manifested by many authors and artists of the Romantic movement
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
and by writers of Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
during the 19th century. Lord Byron was the model for the title character of Glenarvon
Glenarvon
Glenarvon is Lady Caroline Lamb's first novel, published in 1816. Its rakish title character is an unflattering depiction of her ex-lover Lord Byron....
(1816) by Byron's erstwhile lover Lady Caroline Lamb
Lady Caroline Lamb
The Lady Caroline Lamb was a British aristocrat and novelist, best known for her affair with Lord Byron in 1812. Her husband was the 2nd Viscount Melbourne, the Prime Minister...
and for Lord Ruthven
Lord Ruthven (vampire)
Lord Ruthven is a fictional character. First appearing in print in 1816, he was one of the first vampires in English literature.-Origins:There is a genuine title of Lord Ruthven of Freeland which is a subsidiary title of the Earl of Carlisle in the United Kingdom...
in The Vampyre
The Vampyre
"The Vampyre" is a short story or novella written in 1819 by John William Polidori which is a progenitor of the romantic vampire genre of fantasy fiction...
(1819) by Byron's personal physician, Polidori. Captain Wentworth in Persuasion
Persuasion (novel)
Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. She began it soon after she had finished Emma, completing it in August 1816. She died, aged 41, in 1817; Persuasion was published in December that year ....
by Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
(1818), Claude Frollo from Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
's The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is a novel by Victor Hugo published in 1831. The French title refers to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, on which the story is centered.-Background:...
(1831), Heathcliff
Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)
Heathcliff is a fictional character in the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Owing to the novel's enduring fame and popularity, he is often regarded as an archetype of the tortured Romantic hero whose all-consuming passions destroy both himself and those around him.Legend has stereotyped...
from Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
's Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
, Edmond Dantes from Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is often considered to be, along with The Three Musketeers, Dumas's most popular work. He completed the work in 1844...
(1844), (1847), Rochester from Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...
's Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York...
(1847), Dorian Gray
Dorian Gray
Dorian Gray is the main character of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.It may also refer to:* Dorian Gray , an Italian film starring Helmut Berger...
from The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine...
(1890) by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, and James Steerforth
James Steerforth
James Steerforth is a character in the novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. He is a handsome young man noted for his wit and romantic charm. Though he is well liked by his friends, he proves himself to be lacking in consideration for others....
from Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
's David Copperfield
David Copperfield (novel)
The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery , commonly referred to as David Copperfield, is the eighth novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a novel in 1850. Like most of his works, it originally appeared in serial...
(1849–1850) are other later 19th-century examples of Byronic heroes.
Scholars have also drawn parallels between the Byronic hero and the solipsist heroes of Russian literature. In particular, Alexander Pushkin's famed character Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin is a novel in verse written by Alexander Pushkin.It is a classic of Russian literature, and its eponymous protagonist has served as the model for a number of Russian literary heroes . It was published in serial form between 1825 and 1832...
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 Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin is a novel in verse written by Alexander Pushkin.It is a classic of Russian literature, and its eponymous protagonist has served as the model for a number of Russian literary heroes . It was published in serial form between 1825 and 1832...
appeared twelve years after Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and Byron was of obvious influence (Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
argued in his Commentary to Eugene Onegin that Pushkin had read Byron during his years in exile just prior to composing Eugene Onegin). The same character themes continued to influence Russian literature, particularly after Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov , a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", became the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837. Lermontov is considered the supreme poet of Russian literature alongside Pushkin and the greatest...
invigorated the Byronic hero through the character Pechorin in his 1839 novel A Hero of Our Time
A Hero of Our Time
A Hero of Our Time is a novel by Mikhail Lermontov, written in 1839 and revised in 1841. It is an example of the superfluous man novel, noted for its compelling Byronic hero Pechorin and for the beautiful descriptions of the Caucasus...
.
The Byronic hero is also featured in many contemporary novels, and it is clear that Lord Byron's work continues to influence modern literature
History of modern literature
The history of literature in the Modern period in Europe begins with the Age of Enlightenment and the conclusion of the Baroque period in the 18th century, succeeding the Renaissance and Early Modern periods....
as the precursor of a commonly encountered type of antihero. The lead character, Stephen Dedalus
Stephen Dedalus
Stephen Dedalus is James Joyce's literary alter ego, appearing as the protagonist and antihero of his first, semi-autobiographical novel of artistic existence A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and an important character in Joyce's Ulysses...
, of James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce, first serialised in the magazine The Egoist from 1914 to 1915, and published first in book format in 1916 by B. W. Huebsch, New York. The first English edition was published by the Egoist Press in February 1917...
(1914–1916) is one of the most famous literary heroes of this genre. Erik, the Phantom from Gaston Leroux
Gaston Leroux
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera , which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon...
's Phantom of the Opera (1909–1910) is another well-known example from the early twentieth century.
See also
- CharismaCharismaThe term charisma has two senses: 1) compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others, 2) a divinely conferred power or talent. For some theological usages the term is rendered charism, with a meaning the same as sense 2...
- HeroHeroA hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
- Romantic heroRomantic heroThe Romantic hero is a literary archetype referring to a character that rejects established norms and conventions, has been rejected by society, and has the self as the center of his or her own existence. The Romantic hero is often the protagonist in the literary work and there is a primary focus...
- RomanticismRomanticismRomanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
- Tragic flawHamartiaHamartia is a term developed by Aristotle in his work Poetics. The word hamartia is rooted in the notion of missing the mark and covers a broad spectrum that includes ignorant, mistaken, or accidental wrongdoing, as well as deliberate iniquity, error, or sin...
- Antihero
- List of fictional antiheroes
- Tragic heroTragic heroA tragic hero is the main character in a tragedy. Tragic heroes appear in the dramatic works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Webster, Marston, Corneille, Racine, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Strindberg, and many other writers.-Aristotle's tragic hero:Aristotle...