The Byronic Hero

In preparation for our post-Easter classes, as a means of opening up new areas of discussion in our study of Romanticism and as content for our latest class (which, as this post makes clear, is online and not attendance-based), the following post discusses an issue of relevance to the next wave, or generation, of Romanticism that follows on from Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge. And that is the question of what has come to be called the Byronic Hero, as it is with Byron that we’ll begin our assessment of this second generation…

The Byronic Hero, a sort of sub-category of the Romantic Hero, is a figure that is highly evident not only in the works of Lord Byron or his fellow Romantics, but also in a vast range of subsequent writing and screen works. Having said that, though, we most readily associate this figure with epic or heroic works, and not really with other forms of writing.

Nevertheless, although the principal focus of our own study of Byron will be on his shorter, more lyrical poetry, I will be making the point that this figure can actually be traced—explicitly or implicitly—through all of Byron’s writings. In fact, that will be one of the most repeated observations that I’ll be making over the coming sessions.

In spite of that, though, in order to have a clearer idea of what this figure is, what it represents, how it originates and what sort of legacy it leaves us with, we first need to look at the Byronic Hero in fuller detail.

As the senior figure of second-generation Romanticism, Lord Byron is remarkable for many things. In our interest—even fascination—with his real-life exploits (which would have made him a particular favourite with editors and readers of our contemporary gossip magazines) we tend to overlook the fact that he is a truly great artist, a master of prosody and an astonishingly versatile poet who was able to produce work in a variety of poetic styles and traditions of the very highest artistic quality.

One of these traditions can be seen in (among others) the long, epic-like poems of his three extended masterpieces, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Don Juan and Manfred. The three works are very different in several senses (time of composition, content and objectives, poetic form, poetic tone…) but they have one fundamental component in common: the hero, though in fact a far better term would be ‘anti-hero’. In each case, we are presented with a protagonist whose characteristics have become—to a greater or lesser extent—the essential elements of a certain type of rather ‘complex’ male character. And, without repeating the usual series of biographical episodes that are generally wheeled out in discussions such as these, it is enough to say that this type of character, known universally as the Byronic Hero, is taken by many to be a self-conscious representation by Byron of himself. Or else, that he projected onto his major literary characters his own perception of what he would have liked himself to be, and—once these characters had gained public approval (as happened with Childe Harold‘s Pilgrimage, very spectacularly, from 1812), that he then effectively lived out the rest of his life “becoming” his own creation. A case of art imitating life and then life imitating art…

As the epithet indicates, Byron has generally been attributed with ‘inventing’ this type of hero. Actually, that’s almost certainly a convenient fiction; an obvious source of influence for this sort of personality is Milton’s Satan (in Paradise Lost, 1667), a work that was greatly admired by the Romantic poets (Coleridge, for example, claimed that Satan was the true ‘hero’ of Milton’s work). Although we don’t conventionally imagine John Milton—the man—in the same iconoclastic light as Lord Byron, Milton the writer is, in this sense at least, very certainly Byron’s literary father.

But, in the sense that the notion has attached itself now firmly to Byron, what more can we say about it?

One of Byron’s former lovers, Lady Caroline Lamb, famously claimed that Byron was “mad, bad and dangerous to know”, which is something that can be applied to most Byronic heroes. But beyond this, what exactly are the principal characteristics of this type of protagonist, and how far does this figure still remain valid even today? First, here’s a pretty good list of the typical character traits we expect of this sort of anti-hero:

• Arrogant
• Cunning and able to adapt
• Cynical
• Disrespectful of rank and privilege
• Emotionally conflicted, bipolar, or moody
• Having a distaste for social institutions and norms
• Having a troubled past or suffering from an unnamed crime
• Intelligent and perceptive
• Jaded, world-weary
• Mysterious, magnetic and charismatic
• Seductive and sexually attractive
• Self-critical and introspective
• Self-destructive
• Socially and sexually dominant
• Sophisticated and educated
• Struggling with integrity
• Treated as an exile, outcast, or outlaw

Needless to say, the Byronic hero doesn’t have to show all of these characteristics simultaneously!

So what we have, then, is a protagonist who is at odds with conventional society; he is—in a literal sense—”eccentric”, not in the centre. He chooses his exile from that society and sees himself as being superior to it and above its limitations, expectations and code of morality. His intellectual and physical power are obvious (though their source and nature may be a mystery) but these powers may also be overestimated or misunderstood by the hero himself. He is treated suspiciously by conventional society and that suspicion is mutual.

This “recipe” has proved to be irresistible both to writers and to the reading (or now spectating) public. Heathcliffe, the dark, brooding protagonists of  Emily Brontë’sWuthering Heights owes an obvious debt to Byron. But so, too, do many, many other such anti-heroes, whether they are literary, cinematographic or—increasingly—television creations.

The website TV Tropes (a site for TV writers) has an interesting section on how the Byronic hero is still valid to modern character creation. This is part of what they say:

The Byronic Hero is a particular sub-type of Anti-Hero (Or Villain). This is a character of larger-than-life flaws who is quite often placed into the story where an Anti-Herowould go, and yet at the same time his personality traits are idealized to the point that the reader is clearly intended to empathize with the man on some level. The exact extent is hard to say- the guy can be a bit of a Jerk Ass, to be sure, but there’s a certain strong magnetism about him. In some cases, the “hero” part of the name seems to be there only because he tends to be a primary protagonist and thus is a Designated Hero. While they can be good people, Byronic Heroes tend to be morally neutral and largely concerned with their immediate self-interest. However, they are often perceived as being lower on the morality scale owing to unpleasant characteristics such as conflicting emotions, poor integrity, the status of exile, a lack of respect for rank or privilege, a troubled past, cynicism, arrogance, and self-destructiveness. They also have a number of characteristics which are intended as controversial moral failings, at least at the time of writing. Values Dissonance may confuse the intent of some of these traits. Take a classical Byronic Hero (such as Lord Byron himself), who is a nonconformist with a dislike for social norms, introspective, struggles with hissexuality, and is importantly a loner prone to Melodrama. Now, think of this in a time before All Girls Want Bad Boys was mainstream, and you’re getting at the real heart of the ideal. Also, they tend to be Jerkass Woobies. A Byronic hero may have a vaguely suggested horrible crime behind him. This crime may never been made explicit; may indeed be so vague as to suggest that the hero is over-dramatizing himself. This is sometimes wise; Walter Scott had his Byronic hero in The Lady of the Lake commit forgery and lose his impressiveness. If a pirate, bandit, or other criminal, he maynever commit the crime during the course of the work, to avoid bringing his crimes down to earth. Love Tropes are often involved with this character, but almost always in a very cynical, existential way. Don’t hold your breath waiting for The Power Of Love to redeem him. See also Loveable Rogue. Vampires are often written as this kind of character; the definition seems tailor-made for them. Lord Byron himself was the inspiration for piece of vampire literature. While Lord Byron obviously popularized the character type, they existed before him. The name of the hero is largely good timing as it first came into prominence with Romantic writers of the time like the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen. In many ways, the darker incarnation of the Upper Class Wit. Totally unrelated to Kari Byron. Or any series with a Bionic Hero. If they ultimately suffer for their peccadilloes, that is a Tragic Hero, which is not quite the same thing. Tragic Heroes are often tripped up by a specific sin in particular which is hardly a sin at all in Byronic light. The Tragic Hero can be almost as flawed as aByronic Hero, though, they just suffer more for it. Byronic Heroes varies between Type III, Type IV and Type V in the Sliding Scale Of Antiheroes, although some examples of byronic “heroes” are really villains. Depending on which side of the Anti-Hero and Villain line they fall on, they have a high tendency to be a Manipulative Bastard or aGuile Hero. In the Alignment, Byronic Heroes varies between Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral and Neutral Evil (Although the majority are morally Neutral), and almost never Lawful. Compare Übermensch as the two often overlap (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ByronicHero).

The site then lists a very comprehensive range of genres (such as Manga, Mythology or Video Games) in which you can find examples of the Byronic hero.

That’s quite a legacy.