Essays on literary works - 2024

Byron as a Romantic Poet

Let’s get one thing straight: if Lord Byron had been born two centuries later, he would’ve had a verified Twitter account, six scandals a week, and probably a thirst trap OnlyFans he ironically launched “for the aesthetic.” And you know what? We’d eat it up. Because Byron—yes, that Byron, of the chiseled cheekbones and insufferable genius energy—wasn’t just a poet. He was a walking, brooding vibe. A Romantic icon, not because he followed the rules (spoiler: he incinerated them), but because he was the rules. And the chaos. And the softboy toxicity. And the eyeliner smudge of literary history that never quite fades.

So yeah. Let’s talk about Byron as a Romantic poet. But not in the “he wrote about nature and feelings” kind of way. Ew. Boring. We’re not here to regurgitate a SparkNotes blurb. We’re here to feel it. To rage-scroll through Byron’s poetry like it's a leaked diary full of horny guilt, existential panic, and seaside melancholy. We’re here to understand why this messed-up aristocrat with a limp and a God complex still feels like the blueprint for every sad indie boy in your DMs.

I. “Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know”: AKA the Original TikTok Bio

Okay, so here’s the juicy part: Byron didn’t just write Romantic poetry. He lived it. In a way that was messy, beautiful, and kind of emotionally reckless. Think of him as the OG main character syndrome sufferer. The one who stands by the ocean at 3 a.m., shirt open, hair blowing in the wind, muttering metaphors about death and longing. He made drama into literature—and somehow, that wasn’t cringe. It was iconic.

Romanticism, as a movement, was all about rebellion against the Enlightenment’s cold rationality. And Byron? He brought heat. He set the whole genre on fire with his weaponized vulnerability and aestheticized suffering. He wasn’t just sad—he was hot and sad. Which is, honestly, the most dangerous combo since Red Bull and vodka.

Take Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage—a semi-autobiographical poem that launched Byron into literary superstardom and unlocked his inner influencer. It’s basically a softboi travelogue. Harold is brooding and emotionally unavailable, wandering across Europe like a heartbroken Spotify playlist. But under all the ruins and melancholy sighs, it’s just Byron cosplaying as a wounded soul—doing the 19th-century version of Instagram thirst-trapping with ancient architecture in the background. Swipe left for a soliloquy about the futility of life.

Harold, like Byron, is tired of everything: society, morality, parties, politics, even pleasure. It's all very “no thoughts, just vibes... and a slow-burning existential crisis.” And if that isn’t peak Gen Z energy, I don’t know what is.

II. The Brooding Aesthetic™ and Why It Still Works

Let’s talk aesthetic. Because Romantic poetry wasn’t just a literary movement. It was a moodboard. Nature, isolation, ruined empires, raw feelings—it's giving Lana Del Rey. Byron understood that what we see matters as much as what we read. His poetry drips with visuals: moonlit lakes, crumbling palaces, bleeding hearts framed by mountains. You don’t read Byron. You enter him. Like stepping into a Baroque painting with emotional baggage.

Even when he’s writing about actual people (see: She Walks in Beauty), Byron can't help but project this kind of tortured worship. He sees beauty, but he also sees darkness in it. Or maybe he puts the darkness there because light without shadow bored him. Or scared him. Or turned him on. Probably all three.

This constant aesthetic tension—between purity and corruption, ecstasy and despair—is Byron’s poetic love language. And it explains why his lines feel cinematic. Not in a polished, Hollywood kind of way, but in that grainy, 3 a.m., watching-the-sky-cry-through-a-train-window kind of way.

Like:

“She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies”

Bro. That is not about some random woman. That’s about the impossibility of beauty. About desire that hurts. About wanting someone so much it makes you sad for no reason. It’s not about her. It’s about him.

It’s always about him.

III. The Byron Type: Your Fave Is Probably a Reboot

Now, let’s be messy for a sec.

You know that one character archetype that shows up everywhere? The dark, tortured, emotionally wrecked antihero with cheekbones sharp enough to slice a watermelon and trauma deeper than your sleep paralysis? Yeah, that’s Byron. That’s the Byronic hero. And if he were alive today, he’d sue for royalties.

Heathcliff? Byron. Loki? Byron with eyeliner. Kylo Ren? Literally just Byron in space. Even Batman is lowkey giving Gothic Lord Byron cosplay.

The Byronic hero is a cocktail of arrogance, pain, charisma, and mystery. He’s the person you fall for, even though your therapist warned you not to. He’s not good for you, but damn, he gets you. He’s tortured enough to be interesting, but hot enough that you ignore the red flags until it’s too late. In other words: the human version of doomscrolling.

And in poetry? Byron was the prototype. His characters reflect him—not in a subtle, allegorical way, but in a “look how broken and brilliant I am, worship me” kind of way. Byron knew he was mythologizing himself. He leaned into it. He thrived on it.

Honestly, is that not what all influencers do now?

IV. Romanticism Was Never Just Feelings—It Was Rage Dressed as Sensitivity

Here’s where we complicate things (because this isn’t a vibes-only party). Romanticism wasn’t just about crying into your quill over a lost love. It was political. It was angry. It said “screw your logic” to the Enlightenment and “screw your decorum” to Victorian snobbery. Byron—bless his chaotic soul—understood that poetry could be a rebellion wrapped in a velvet glove.

Look at Don Juan. It’s long, weird, satirical, horny, and oddly philosophical. It’s not the romanticized Romeo-Julia fantasy people want from Byron. It’s chaos. It’s contradictions. It’s a total mockery of society’s sacred cows. Byron took a legendary lover and made him… passive? Seduced, not seductive? I mean, imagine writing an epic poem and turning the entire structure of heroism inside out. That’s not just cheeky. That’s revolutionary.

And it tracks. Byron didn’t write from an ivory tower. He was in the trenches—literally. The dude died in Greece fighting for independence. His politics were messy, sure, but they were active. He wasn’t a passive feeler. He was a storm pretending to be a lake.

And maybe that’s the core of Byron’s Romanticism: that deep, desperate yearning for change. Change in self, change in society, change in the very fabric of what poetry could be.

V. Why We Still Crave Byron (and Why That Might Be a Little Problematic)

So here we are. 2025. Still simping for Byron. Still writing fanfic-level analyses of his tortured soul. Still teaching his poems in high school classrooms that smell like whiteboard markers and teen ambivalence.

Why?

Because Byron feels real. Messy. Complex. He doesn’t sanitize his feelings—he amplifies them until they vibrate. He was a man of contradictions: narcissist and revolutionary, libertine and idealist, art-boy and war-boy. He wasn’t trying to be consistent. He was trying to be honest. Or at least interesting.

But also… maybe we should interrogate that a little?

Romanticizing the Byronic archetype comes with baggage. The tortured genius trope? Kinda toxic. The glorification of emotional inaccessibility? Red flag central. The idea that suffering = depth? Baby, that’s not poetry. That’s a Tumblr trauma cycle.

Byron is seductive because he invites us to feel deeply, but sometimes he also teaches us to mistake chaos for passion, distance for mystique, pain for authenticity. And yeah, that’s compelling. But maybe we’ve evolved past that. Maybe.

Or maybe we’re just Byron with Wi-Fi.

Final Thought Drop (No Resolution, Just Vibes)

Reading Byron is like doomscrolling your own soul. You see yourself in the reflection and it’s kind of hot. Kind of terrifying. Kind of a mirror you don’t want to look away from. His Romanticism isn’t just a literary movement. It’s a fever dream with good hair and questionable ethics.

And maybe that’s the whole point. Maybe we don’t conclude Byron. Maybe we just… repost him. Recycle the ache. Reframe the ruins. Fall in love with the drama all over again.

Because deep down, we’re all just characters in someone else’s Childe Harold—wandering, yearning, hashtag sad.
Swipe left. Read a poem. Curse the moon.

Then open your Notes app and try to write something that hurts beautifully.
Byron would approve.

Probably.

Maybe.

Honestly, who knows with that guy.