Essays on literary works - 2024

Analysis of Lord Byron's Poem “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage”

Perhaps Byron's most famous work is the poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," the creation of which spanned many years (1809-1818). It is a lyrical diary in which the poet expressed his attitude towards life, evaluated his era, European countries, and the social conflicts of society. According to Fyodor Tyutchev, Byron was a "mighty, majestic, enthusiastic reviler of the universe."

Byron is captivated by the beauty of nature, the vividness, and diversity of human personality - and at the same time, he rejects one foundation of European life after another, finding nothing in them that is high and eternal. The maximalism of the Romantic poet, his opposition to everything imperfect, his tireless thirst for new experiences, for "other worlds" where a high ideal might be realized, led him to the plot of a travel poem. Portugal, Spain, Albania, Greece, Switzerland, and Italy pass before our eyes in vivid pictures, painted with both rapture and bitterness.

The poem is complex to read, as the plot is weak, and the character of the hero is overshadowed by the personality of the author. At the same time, the poem is distinguished by an extraordinary force of emotion, intellectual depth, and philosophical richness.

The image of Harold - a son of his age - cannot be reduced to a specific individual. Byron is not interested in the private but in the universal, and he does not paint a literal portrait—he generalizes the moods, dreams, and disappointments of an entire generation.

In the first canto of the poem, the hero, occupied with "idle amusements," loses interest in life and feels a sense of loneliness. The world that has opened up before the "restless fugitive" does not dispel his gloom but awakens a tireless search for meaning in life. Even in love, Harold remains cold and sullen.

The luxurious nature of Lusitania, heroic Spain, the stormy sea and clear sky, freedom and poetic inspiration, the people and the war of liberation—all these things excite Byron; his world is vast, dynamic, intense, and vibrant compared to the hero's dull impressions.

The Romantic poet seeks justice in a world that he envisions as a possibility of harmony, but one that is not actually realized. The beautiful nature of Sintra is juxtaposed with the dirty Lisbon; once cheerful Seville has become gloomy due to the bloody war waged for the glory of tyrants.

The glory of tyrants and "lovers of war" (generals, commanders) is ultimately destroyed by time. As are the magnificent palaces of the rich.

The Romantic poet, in the vastness of his demands on the world, rises to the level of reproaching God, to a kind of blasphemy. And the author himself is doomed to disappointment and loneliness. Nature revives a person to life. Nature and the joys of ordinary people soften both the author and his heroes. In Florence's "beautiful eyes," Harold finds admiration—albeit "only admiration." The science of love has led to "the aging of the heart." Loneliness in a worldly crowd leads the poet to pain and indignation, not to cold alienation. Confessing to Florence that he values freedom more than love, the author is more humane than his hero: "And if, O dear Florence, my soul, deaf to feeling, could love, fate itself would favor us. But, an enemy of chains, rejecting all bonds, I will not make vain sacrifices to your temple and will not inflict needless pain upon you." In this humanity of the Romantic poet, we see a connection to the Renaissance.

Byron is skeptical in his attitude towards both religion (which he rejects) and his homeland (which he has left), but the poet's passionate patriotism is heard in his angry reproach to all who disgrace England. But the beauty of Greece does not allow the poet to reconcile himself to its fall. A passionate call for the country's revival, for liberation from Turkish rule, permeates the second canto: "O Greece! Rise up to fight! A slave must win his own freedom!" Amid the ruins of beautiful Hellas, he finds solace in the fact that nature cannot be killed. Freedom and love, nature and poetry, even in sorrow and despair, remain timeless, enduring values.