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The Essential Byron
Byron's mature style is wonderfully discursive, ranging from Aristotle through hitting the sack to hitting the bottle sack, while relishing the rhyme on "Aristotle" and "bottle" along he way; he reminds us again and again that poetry can be serious without being solemn, that it might even be fun.
- GenresPoetry
113 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1989
About the author
Lord Byron
4,458 books2,140 followersGeorge Gordon Byron (invariably known as Lord Byron), later Noel, 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale FRS was a British poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Amongst Byron's best-known works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty, When We Two Parted, and So, we'll go no more a roving, in addition to the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential, both in the English-speaking world and beyond.
Byron's notabilty rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured upper-class living, numerous love affairs, debts, and separation. He was notably described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". Byron served as a regional leader of Italy's revolutionary organization, the Carbonari, in its struggle against Austria. He later travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died from a fever contracted while in Messolonghi in Greece.
Byron's notabilty rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured upper-class living, numerous love affairs, debts, and separation. He was notably described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". Byron served as a regional leader of Italy's revolutionary organization, the Carbonari, in its struggle against Austria. He later travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died from a fever contracted while in Messolonghi in Greece.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 16, 2022
“I must own, If I have any fault, it is digression”
Truer words were never spoken. Byron can’t maintain a narrative, not just in his longer poems but also in his shorter ones, without wandering off on a discourse to criticize Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and other poets of his time. This is just a small collection and some excerpts of his poems, but geez it gets boring hearing someone constantly ragging about how bad other people are. I can’t imagine how irritating the full poems would be.
Truer words were never spoken. Byron can’t maintain a narrative, not just in his longer poems but also in his shorter ones, without wandering off on a discourse to criticize Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and other poets of his time. This is just a small collection and some excerpts of his poems, but geez it gets boring hearing someone constantly ragging about how bad other people are. I can’t imagine how irritating the full poems would be.
March 19, 2025
Great poetry, but too short (117 pages). This Byron book needed more Byron. I haven't read Don Juan before, and since this only includes a few excerpts from it, I didn't follow the plot (there are no summaries or explanatory notes, just the poems). Beppo is great. Almost every poem has some funny, cheeky turns of phrase.
SPOILER BELOW (for a 200-year-old poem)
The dog-eating and cannibalism part in Don Juan really caught me off guard.
SPOILER BELOW (for a 200-year-old poem)
The dog-eating and cannibalism part in Don Juan really caught me off guard.
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August 2, 2012A short accessible reader, though Muldoon might concentrate too much on Byron's funny slams of other poets.
Enjoyed a number of his final epigramatic couplets, his fundamental lack of reverence, and how in a number of his poems the long digressions are the point--
“Oh! Southey, Southey! cease they varied song! / A Bard may chaunt too often, and too long:”
"I’ve half a mind to tumble down to prose,
But verse is more in fashion—so here goes."
"Translating tongues he knows not even by letter,
And sweating plays so middling, bad were better."
“He had written much blank verse, and blanker prose,
And more of both than any body knows."
On Wordsworth: “’Tis poetry—at least by his assertion”
“I’ve got new mythological machinery
And very handsome supernatural scenery”
Enjoyed a number of his final epigramatic couplets, his fundamental lack of reverence, and how in a number of his poems the long digressions are the point--
“Oh! Southey, Southey! cease they varied song! / A Bard may chaunt too often, and too long:”
"I’ve half a mind to tumble down to prose,
But verse is more in fashion—so here goes."
"Translating tongues he knows not even by letter,
And sweating plays so middling, bad were better."
“He had written much blank verse, and blanker prose,
And more of both than any body knows."
On Wordsworth: “’Tis poetry—at least by his assertion”
“I’ve got new mythological machinery
And very handsome supernatural scenery”
July 8, 2009
He was no Keats, or John Donne for that matter. Perhaps my distaste for him that developed after reading a disfavourable bio has flavored my opinion.
July 18, 2009
I'm a big fan of Lord George Gordon, this is just a very small excerpt of his poems
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews