George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Among Byron's best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and the short lyric "She Walks in Beauty." He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential.
He travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died at 36 years of age from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi in Greece.
Byron was celebrated in life for aristocratic excesses including huge debts, numerous love affairs, rumours of a scandalous incestuous liaison with his half-sister, and self-imposed exile. It has been speculated that he suffered from bipolar I disorder, or manic depression.
Read more about Lord Byron: Name, Early Life, "Anticipated Life" and The Poet's Psyche, Education and Early Loves, Physical Appearance, Early Career, Political Career, Post Mortem, Poetic Works, Parthenon Marbles, Sea and Swimming, Celebrity, Fondness For Animals, Lasting Influence, Depictions in Fiction and Film, Musical Settings Of, or Music Inspired By, Poems By Byron
Famous quotes containing the words lord and/or byron:
“As a man-of-war that sails through the sea, so this earth that sails through the air. We mortals are all on board a fast-sailing, never-sinking world-frigate, of which God was the shipwright; and she is but one craft in a Milky-Way fleet, of which God is the Lord High Admiral.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind:
All are not fit with them to stir and toil,
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)