Byron CH Canto 3

Canto III
Canto 3 begins with Byron sadly recalling his daughter, Ada, whom he has not seen since the breakup of his
marriage. Byron returns to the story of Harold, first warning readers that the young hero has greatly changed since
the publication of the first two cantos. During the interim, Byron has endured the painful separation and the scandal
concerning his relationship with Augusta, all of which essentially forced him to leave England. His bitterness is
evident in the far darker tone of canto 3, and the character of Harold and that of the narrator, never strikingly
different in temperament, now are more clearly merged. Still unable to completely detach himself from feeling the
pangs of human compassion, Harold flees to the solitude of natural surroundings, finding nature to be the one true
consoler. He feels a communication with the desert, the forest, the ocean, the mountains. Finding Harold at the site
of the Battle of Waterloo, “the grave of France,” Byron resumes the theme of Napoleon’s despotism and takes the
opportunity to examine tyranny in general. Praising the heroes of that fateful and momentous battle, Byron blames
Napoleon’s extremism, arguing that moderation would have prevented the disastrous results of a once noble plan.
Harold then travels to Germany, where he still is not immune to feelings of love and joy, however fleeting. Visiting
the Swiss Alps leads Harold to the sites of other battles. Lake Leman (Lake Geneva) recalls to Byron the great French
philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the forerunners of the Romantic movement. This section, it has often
been noted, has a distinctly Shelleyan mood, and indeed Byron wrote it while visiting Percy Bysshe Shelley. Byron
explores the pantheistic philosophies of William Wordsworth, Shelley, and Rousseau and expresses feelings of
oneness with nature, though he ultimately rejects their ideas. These feelings, furthermore, lead him to consider his
feelings of alienation in the world of humankind. Insisting that he is neither cynical nor completely disillusioned,
Byron insists that he believes that there are one or two people who are “almost what they seem” and that happiness
and goodness are possible. Byron concludes the canto as he begins it, lamenting his absence from Ada, imagining
what it would be like to share in her development, to watch her grow.
Q. When was Byron’s Childe Harold Pilgrimage published?
A. The first two cantos of Byron’s Childe Harold Pilgrimage was first published in 1812 though Byron started it back in
1809 in Albania. Canto III was published in 1816 and Canto IV in 1818.
Q. Write a note on the genre and style of Byron’s Childe Harold Pilgrimage.
At the outset the poem is a long narrative poem modelled on the medieval metrical romances. It purports to
describe the travels and reflections of a pilgrim who being disgusted with the life ofpleasure and revelry, seeks
distraction in a foreign land. It contains elements from different branches of poetry. Its continuality is epical, at least
in the style of an episodical epic-poem like the Odyssey, or the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto. Its descriptions of scenery
and sketches of life are idyllic.
Q. Write a note on the notions of a Byronic hero as you find on Childe Harold Pilgrimage.
Byronic hero often refers to the character of an angry, self-exiled, melancholic and conceited young man that recurs
Byron’s works like Childe Harold Pilgrimage, Manfred and Cain, Don Juan. Idea of such a character could be first
viewed in Childe Harold Pilgrimage (in the MS the name was first written as Childe Burun, an old form of the name
and title of Byron)through the projection of Childe Harold, a deemed-to-be knight who finds the old order of
morality and chivalric code to be redundant. These characters are proud, self-centred, tortured outcast and in revolt
against the
tyranny of social order and authority which are typical characteristic of Byron himself, who was considered the most
subjective even among the romantics.
Q. Which style and stanza pattern Byron has used in Childe Harold Pilgrimage and why?
Having intended his poem to be a long narrative poem in the Spenserian mode as in The Fairy Queen, Byron has
used the Spenserian stanza which consists of eight iambic pentameter lines followed by an alexandrine which is a
twelve syllable line where the primary accent falls on sixth and last syllable and the secondary accent on the half
line. The Spenserian stanza is extremely literary which exposes the literary ambitions of Byron for writing this poem
instead of his desire to write only an autobiographical travelogue.
Q. Characteristics of Byron’s Poetry /Byron as a poet of revolution

1. Byron as a revolutionary and a poet of Sensation-One of the supreme poets of revolutionary and liberty, Byron’s
poetry voices the spirit of revolution which captured the imagination of Europe in the earlier years of the 19th
century. Byron’s poems are very sensuous to the extent of being prone to every sensation that a human mind can
capture. A
rebel against the society, Byron often challenges the very conditions of human life and the supreme exponent of the
distinctive forces of revolution.
2. The Byronic Hero
3. Byron as the Satirist-Byron’s genius is essentially satiric. In his expression of his scorn, a kind of sublime and
reckless arrogance, he has the touch of the master. However, his motive is to a very large extent personal, and so his
scorn becomes one-sided sometimes. But the bigness of heart he possess do not let him be mean or misanthropic.
But he lacks the bigger vision of a Cervantes, Sterne, Pope or even a Dryden.
4. Byron as the Poet of Nature
To Byron Nature is chiefly earthly and full of sensation. He looks at Nature with a sense of wonder and delight but
she does not have any transcendental significance for him. He did not muse reflectively on Nature but was satisfied
with her external features.
5. Byron’s narrative genius
Byron is a master story-teller in verse. He has the swiftness and energy which makes up whatever defects are there
in technique. His tremendous sympathy for humanity is evident in its interest of inspirational individuals.
6. Byron’s lyrical faculty
7. Byron’s is more rhetorical than lyrical. His lyric exudes his moods. He is a master of passionate self-expression.
8. Byron-the Romantic Paradox
He was a man of the world, a representative of the urban part of society and a great admirer of Pope. But unlike
Lamb, he does not find beauty in the humdrum elements of social life but in the lofty ideals of revolution and social
reformation. On the other hand, he is not a great disciplinarian like Pope, but a free spirit who was fascinated with
romantic subjects. In a way, he looks like a counter revolutionary who tried to confine poetry in its old discipline, but
he is closer to Rousseau and Chateaubriand than to Pope and Johnson.

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Canto III

Q. Characteristics of Byron’s Poetry /Byron as a poet of revolution

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