Childe Harolds Pilgrimage: A Romaunt

1
Childe Harolds Pilgrimage A Romaunt

• A poem in four cantos written between 1809 and
  1818
• Description of Byrons travels in Europe and the
  Levant. A Grand Tour in verse.
• Largely autobiographical.
• Protagonist Harold, a noblemans eldest son (a
  childe). A mask for the narrator and the
  prototype of the Byronic hero. Pretence about the
  pilgrim abandoned in Canto IV.
• A Romaunta romance medieval chivalric spirit. A
  quest. Through many adventures and experiences in
  search of ones identity.
• A Pilgrimage travel metaphor. Spiritual journey
  as well as outer travel

2
Structure

• Traditional structure Spenserian stanzas
• 8 iambic pentameters final iambic hexameter
• Rhyme scheme ababbcbcc
• Many run-on lines (enjambement)
• Model Spenser, The Faerie Queene and Thomson,
  Castle of Indolence (1742)
• Archaic diction mythological allusions.
  Unashamedly overwritten. Highly rhetorical. Many
  apostrophes.
• Four Cantos
• Cantos I-II (1812) account of travels with
  friend Hobhouse (1809-1811) Portugal, Spain,
  Greece, Turkey
• Canto IIIwritten after leaving England in
  self-imposed exile. Belgium and Switzerland
  (1816)
• Canto IV (1818) Italy.

3
The Byronic stance

• Cantos I-III Harold, the protagonist, and a
  narrating voice. Both autobiographical.
  Separation blurred.Harold an alter ego. Prototype
  of Byronic hero
• Canto IV pretence dropped. Only narrating voice
  (I).
• Remnants of Byronic stance.
• Solitude
• Exile st. VIII-X (Ive taught me other
  tongues) there woos no home, nor hope, nor
  life, save what is here st. CV
• Ruin
• Fall from a high position

4
From Preface to Canto IV (Letter To
Hobhouse) It was in vain that I asserted, and
imagined that I had drawn a distinction between
the author and the pilgrim and the very anxiety
to preserve this difference, and disappointment
at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my
efforts that I determined to abandon it
altogetherand have done so. In Canto IV
there will be found less of the pilgrim than in
any of the preceding, and that little slightly,
if at all, separated from the author speaking in
his own persona.
5
Canto IV

• A travelogue on a grand scale.
• A Romantic traveller, interested in nature,
  history, politics rather than in art
• Narrator treads / Rome for the sake of ages
• entwines / his thoughts with Nature, rather,
  in the fields, / Than Art in galleries
• Account the result of several visits organized as
  one trip.
• Account based as much on readings as on actually
  being there (Mrs. Radcliffs Mysteries of
  Udolpho, Madame de Staels Corinne, Joseph
  Forsyths guidebook, Remarks on Antiquities
• Takes reader place by place, hero by hero.
• Combines narration and lyrical description with
  historical résumé and digressions.

6
Themes in Canto IV

• Post-Napoleonic Italy still beautiful but
  degraded, morally as well as physically
  threatened.
• Ubi sunt motif.
• Power of literature
• Jeremiads over degradation of Italy and its
  present political state. Personal involvement in
  Italian history.
• The genius of the place (spiritus loci) each
  place firing a meditation (topographical or
  historical) or some considerations on speaker.

7
Byrons love for Italy
Man must be wilfully blind, or ignorantly
heedless, who is not struck with the
extraordinary capacity of this people,, or, if
such a word be admissible, their capabilities
the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity
of their conceptions, the fire of their genius,
their sense of beauty, and, amidst all the
disadvantages of repeated revolutions, the
desolation of battles, and the despair of ages,
their still unquenched longing after
immortalitythe immortality of
independence (Preface to Canto IV, letter to
Hobhouse)
8
Canto IV Italian places

• Venice
• Moonlight on the Brenta xxvii-xxviii
• Arquà (Petrarchs memory
• Ferrara (Tassos memory )
• Florence, (S Croce, the Uffizi, Venus de Medici)
• Lake Thrasimene natural beauty and history
  (Hannibal).
• Sources of Clitumnus
• Terni waterfalls (cascata delle Marmore)
• Mount Soractes
• Rome

9
Venice, st. I-XXIV

• Magic beauty (rises As from the stroke of the
  Enchanters wand st. I
• A melancholy, decadent Italy
• Venice has lost its power (a dying glory
  smiles) but not its beauty st. iv
• Lives through literary creation, a being of the
  mind st. iv-v
• A melancholy narrator, in sympathy with the place
• I meditate amongst decay, and stand / A ruin
  amidst ruins (220)
• Narrative voice clearly autobiographical
• I loved her from my boyhood. Spent the
  happiest moments of his life there
• Narrative voice creates stance of Byronic hero
• Exile, hoping to be remembered through his poetry
  (st. viii-x) I seek no sympathies I bleed
  87-89
• The heart whose early flowers have died
• An oppressed country
• The lot of Venice shameful to the nations.
  Partly Englands responsibility st. xviii

10
Metaphors about Venice

• A sea Cybele a mother-goddess, a ruler wearing
  a tiara, robed in purple proud majestic hostess
  to monrchs showering gems on her daughters. (st.
  II)
• A Queen with an unequalled dower st. XI
• A widow st. xi
• A lion with withered power st XI a bridled
  horse
• Sinks like a sea-weed
• A prisoner with clanking chains trampled by a
  foreign emperor
• Melting snow in sunshine, like a Lauwine
  (avalanche, slavina)

11
Rome LXXVIII-

• Ruins a memento of cycles in history
• There is the moral of all human tales / Tis but
  the same rehearsal of the past (cviii)
• Ruins a memento on how the Mighty fall
• Each site the starting point of a philosophical
  meditation on history

12
A Guide to Rome

• Scipios tomb (lxxxvii)
• Pompeys statue (lxxxvii)
• The she-wolf statue (lxxxviii-ix)
• Caecilia Metellas tomb (st. xcix-civ)
• Mount Palatine (cvii)
• Trajans arch and column(cx-cxi)
• The rock of Triumph on the Capitol (temple of
  Jupiter) (cxii)
• Tarpeian rock (cxii)
• The forum (cxii-cxiv)
• Fountain and grotto of Egeria (cxv-cxviii)
• Coliseum (cxxviii-cxxxii and cxxxviii-cxlv)
• Pantheon (cxlvi-vii)
• Hadrians Mole (clii)
• St. Peters and the sublime (cliii-ix)
• Vatican Museum Laocoon, Apollo Belvedere,
  Prometheus (clx-xiii)
• Nemi and Albano

13
Byron reflected in Italian artists

• Petrarch and Arquà st. xxx-xxxii
• Tasso in the madhouse st. xxxv-xxxix
• Ariostos crown torn from his bust
• Santa Croce (Michelangelo, Alfieri, Galileo,
  Machiavelli but not Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio
  st.liv-lx
• Byrons view of his grave
• My name from out the temple where the dead / Are
  honoured by the Nation 82-4

14
Other Byronic heroes

• Seeks his own image throughout history.
  Identifies with fallen and buried generations
• Napoleon, Romantic hero. Self-fallen and
  self-condemned. Eminence and degradation
  (LXXXIX-XCV)
• Cromwell, immortal rebel See what crimes it
  costs to be a moment free (LXXXV)
• George Washington (XCVI)

15
(No Transcript)
16
Byrons Italy

• Feminized Italy thou hast / The fatal gift of
  Beauty(371) (cf. Filcaia Italia, Italia, cui
  fio la sorte / Dono infelice di bellezza
  Destructive charms
• Therefore desired, raped, oppressed (robbers
  press / To shed thy blood, and drink the tears
  of thy distress (378)
• Mother of Arts! As once of Arms! xlvii
• Her wrongs should ring from side to side of the
  world xlvii
• Europe should revenge her

17
Personal Allusions in Canto IV

• Abandons narrative fiction of Harolds adventures
  and the more metaphysical tenor of Canto III.
• Allusions to his own personal history are closely
  linked to history of Italy. Byron sees himself as
  involved in the history of Italy and trying to
  understand it (st. CXII)
• Equates his own social fall (divorce, scandal.
  exclusion from proper English society) to fall
  from past spledour witnessed in Italy (Venice,
  Rome)
• Contemplation of ruins makes him think of his own
  ruined life. Revenge and forgiveness stanzas
• Contemplation of sublime places (St. Peters)
  elevates and expands his mind
• Many great Italian spirits, alter-egos for Byron.
• Believes in the power of literature

18
(No Transcript)
19
Childe HaroldCanto IV Schema dellopera (green
highlighting indicates personal
digressions) (yellow highlighting indicates
historical digressions)       I-V Magic of Venice
and its effect on man Immagini Canaletto,
Turner) VII-X Comments on self XI-XV Venice
then and now XVI-XVII Literary memory of
Venice XVIII-XIX significance of Venice for
speaker XX--XXIV on the ffects of suffering on
the human soul and on its recurring cycles
XXV-XXVI Praise of Italy XXVI I- XXXII
Brenta-Arquà and Petrarch XXXIII-XXXIV
digression on solitude XXXV-XLI Ferrara and
Tasso Ariosto XLII_ XLVII Lament for
Italy XLVIII-LIII Florence and the Venus de
Medici Immagini Venus de Medici LIV-LX Santa
Croce and Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio LXI-LXV
Lake Thrasimene beauty, history and the
earthquake LXVI- LXVIII Source of
Clitunnus Immagini fonti del
Clitunno LXIX-LXXII Waterfalls Terni
Immagini cascata delle Marmore LXXIII- LXVIII
The Apennines and Soractes (classical memories
hated because of schooling) LXXVIII-LXXXII Rome
City of the Soul emphasis on loss, decay
Niobe of nations. She saw her glories star by
star expire . Resurrection through memory,
literature LXXXIII- History of Rome Sylla, the
she-wolf, Caesar.. XC- XCVIII Digression
Comparisons of great Roman dictators with
Napoleon (a vain man, a bastard Caesar),
Digression Washington and the United States
(Columbia) French Revolution, congress of
Vienna. Mankind enjoying to be humiliated,
lacking in true love for freedom. Still there is
hopeThe seed of freedom lives on XCIX-CIII Tomb
of Caecilia Metella. Meditation on her death CIV
Effect of ruins and tombs in making speakers
griefs look petty and in eliciting
hope. CVII-CXIII Digression on history (the
same rehearsal of the past) Ubi sunt motif CXIV
Cola da Rienzo CXV-CXVIII The natural beauty of
Egerias fountain. Word painting. CXIX-CXXVI
digression on Love and other human sentiments
(fame, ambition etc.). Cyclical like history. But
speaker will not resign himself. CXXVIII Other
ruins in Rome the Coliseum, Ruins beautified by
Time. CXXX-CXXXVII Personal stanzas Among Roman
ruins also his own ruins of years Curse and
forgiveness of those who have hurt him.
CXXXVIII- CXLV back to the Coliseum. CXLVI-CLII
more ruins and classical meditations Pantheon,
legend of daughter breast-feeding aging father
Hadrians Mole (Castel SantAngelo) CLIII-CLIX
St. Peters basilica and the sublime
CLX-CLXIII-Vatican Museum Laocoon, Apollo
Belvedere, Prometheus Immagini CLXIV-CLXVIand
CLXXV- CLXXVIII Farewell to Childe Harold and the
experience of writing the poem. It has been
therapeutic. Speaker is left with the consolation
of love for Nature. CLXVII-CLXXII Death of
Princess Charlotte Aigusta, heir to the English
throne CLXXIX Digression while man marks the
earth with ruins, the Ocean swallows all and
boundless, endless, sublime is the image of
Eternity CLXXXV-CLXXXVI Author bids farewell to
his readers hoping that the story of Harolds
pilgrimage has left some recollection CLXXIII  
20
Childe HaroldCanto IV Schema dellopera
(bold indicates personal digressions)   I-V
Magic of Venice and its effect on man VII-X
Comments on self XI-XV Venice then and
now XVI-XVII Literary memory of Venice XVIII-XIX
significance of Venice for speaker XX--XXIV on
the effects of suffering on the human soul and on
its recurring cycles XXV-XXVI Praise of Italy
21
XXVI I- XXXII Brenta-Arquà and
Petrarch XXXIII-XXXIV digression on
solitude XXXV-XLI Ferrara and Tasso
Ariosto XLII_ XLVII Lament for
Italy XLVIII-LIII Florence and the Venus de
Medici Immagini Venus de Medici LIV-LX Santa
Croce and Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio LXI-LXV
Lake Thrasimene beauty, history and the
earthquake LXVI- LXVIII Source of
Clitunnus Immagini fonti del
Clitunno LXIX-LXXII Waterfalls Terni
Immagini cascata delle Marmore LXXIII- LXVIII
The Apennines and Soractes (classical memories
hated because of schooling)
22
LXXVIII-LXXXII Rome City of the Soul emphasis
on loss, decay Niobe of nations. She saw her
glories star by star expire . Resurrection
through memory, literature LXXXIII- History of
Rome Sylla, the she-wolf, Caesar.. XC- XCVIII
Digression Comparisons of great Roman dictators
with Napoleon (a vain man, a bastard
Caesar), Digression Washington and the United
States (Columbia) French Revolution, congress of
Vienna. Mankind enjoying to be humiliated,
lacking in true love for freedom. Still there is
hopeThe seed of freedom lives on XCIX-CIII Tomb
of Caecilia Metella. Meditation on her death CIV
Effect of ruins and tombs in making speakers
griefs look petty and in eliciting
hope. CVII-CXIII Digression on history (the
same rehearsal of the past) Ubi sunt motif CXIV
Cola da Rienzo CXV-CXVIII The natural beauty of
Egerias fountain. Word painting. CXIX-CXXVI
digression on Love and other human sentiments
(fame, ambition etc.). Cyclical like history. But
speaker will not resign himself.
23
CXXVIII Other ruins in Rome the Coliseum,
Ruins beautified by Time. CXXX-CXXXVII Personal
stanzas Among Roman ruins also his own ruins of
years Curse and forgiveness of those who have
hurt him. CXXXVIII- CXLV back to the
Coliseum. CXLVI-CLII more ruins and classical
meditations Pantheon, legend of daughter
breast-feeding aging father Hadrians Mole
(Castel SantAngelo) CLIII-CLIX St. Peters
basilica and the sublime CLX-CLXIII-Vatican
Museum Laocoon, Apollo Belvedere, Prometheus
Immagini
24
CXXX-CXXXVII Personal stanzas Among Roman ruins
also his own ruins of years Curse and
forgiveness of those who have hurt him.
CXXXVIII- CXLV back to the Coliseum. CXLVI-CLII
more ruins and classical meditations Pantheon,
legend of daughter breast-feeding aging father
Hadrians Mole (Castel SantAngelo) CLIII-CLIX
St. Peters basilica and the sublime
CLX-CLXIII-Vatican Museum Laocoon, Apollo
Belvedere, Prometheus Immagini CLXIV-CLXVIand
CLXXV- CLXXVIII Farewell to Childe Harold and the
experience of writing the poem. It has been
therapeutic. Speaker is left with the consolation
of love for Nature. CLXVII-CLXXII Death of
Princess Charlotte Augusta, heir to the English
throne CLXXIII-CLXXIV Nemi and Albano CLXXIX
Digression while man marks the earth with ruins,
the Ocean swallows all and boundless, endless,
sublime is the image of Eternity CLXXXV-CLXXXVI
Author bids farewell to his readers hoping that
the story of Harolds pilgrimage has left some
recollection