Byronic Hero: Definition, Characteristics & Examples
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore.”
Lord Byron- Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage .
The archetype of the Byronic hero was first associated with the famous 19th-century English Romantic poet Lord Byron. Most literary scholars and historians consider the first literary Byronic hero to be Byron's Childe Harold, the protagonist of Byron's epic poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Childe Harold was a disillusioned young man,a melancholy, solitary, cynical 'Byronic hero', who tires of his sinful, pleasure-seeking lifestyle and decides to travel.
However, many literary scholars and historians also consider Childe Harold the avatar of Lord Byron himself,for he reflected throughout his life, all his inner contradictions along with the attributes of the literary hero, he would make famous in his writings. Nevertheless, Byron wanted to present heroic characters that evokes his boredom with traditional and Romantic heroic characters,introducing a heroic archetype that would also appeal to readers yet,seem more psychologically realistic.
A Byronic hero can be conceptualized as an extreme variation of the Romantic hero archetype. Traditional Romantic heroes tend to be defined by their rejection or questioning of standard social conventions and norms of behavior, their alienation from larger society with focusing on the self as the center of existence, and their ability to inspire others to achieve acts of good and kindness.
This type was vividly adopted into the Gothic aesthetic, where characters such as Manfred in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) and Montoni in Ann Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), could manifest their brooding discontent in terrifying ways. What is also a striking trait is their self-destructive tendencies and a mysterious physical appearance,their remarkable intelligence and cunning, strong feelings of affection and hatred, impulsiveness, strong sensual desires, moodiness, cynicism, dark humor, and morbid sensibilities.
Other examples include :Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights (1847),Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Shakespeare’s Hamlet (around 1600).
Paula B.
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