One of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, Byron is regarded as one of the greatest English poets. He remains widely read and influential. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; many of his shorter lyrics in Hebrew Melodies also became popular.Byron is considered to be the first modern-style celebrity. His image as the personification of the Byronic hero fascinated the public.The figure of the Byronic hero pervades much of his work, and Byron himself is considered to epitomise many of the characteristics of this literary figure. The use of a Byronic hero by many authors and artists of the Romantic movement show Byron's influence during the 19th century and beyond, including the Brontë sisters. His philosophy was more durably influential in continental Europe than in England; Friedrich Nietzsche admired him, and the Byronic hero was echoed in Nietzsche's Übermensch, or superman.The Poetry CollectionsHOURS OF IDLENESSCHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGEHEBREW MELODIESSTANZAS FOR MUSICOCCASIONAL PIECES, 1807–1824DOMESTIC PIECES, 1816SATIRESTALESTHE GIAOURTHE BRIDE OF ABYDOSTHE CORSAIRLARATHE SIEGE OF CORINTHPARISINATHE PRISONER OF CHILLONMAZEPPATHE ISLANDTHE LAMENT OF TASSOTHE PROPHECY OF DANTETHE MORGANTE MAGGIORE OF PULCIFRANCESCA OF RIMINIBEPPOMINOR POEMSDRAMASMANFREDMARINO FALIEROSARDANAPALUSTHE TWO FOSCARICAIN: A MYSTERYHEAVEN AND EARTHWERNERTHE DEFORMED TRANSFORMEDDON JUANThe Short StoryThe Letters
The motif of Manfred is remorse — eternal suffering for inexpiable crime. The sufferer is for ever buoyed up with the hope that there is relief somewhere in nature, beyond nature, above nature, and experience replies with an everlasting No! As the sunshine enhances sorrow, so Nature, by the force of contrast, reveals and enhances guilt. Manfred is no echo of another’s questioning, no expression of a general world-weariness on the part of the time-spirit, but a personal outcry: “De profundis clamavi!”
“I forgot,” he writes, “to mention to you that a kind of Poem in dialogue (in blank verse) or drama ... begun last summer in Switzerland, is finished; it is in three acts; but of a very wild, metaphysical, and inexplicable kind.”