Lord Byron is famous for more than just the words he put on the paper, but also the way he did it. Charles H. Donelan is a student at Tuff’s University who wrote the article Mortality of the Monosyllable: Freedom and Collective Memory in Byron’s “that there sort of writing”. In this article he analyzes the way Byron writes. It’s almost as if you could understand a bit of Byron’s personality just by his style of writing. Donelan believes that Byron wanted to push the borders of poetry and make a statement with his words even if they were unconventional. He believes that Byron would alter actual events in time and slightly alter them, Donelan expressed this by saying, “Byron develops a hero whose role is representative, rather than decisive, against a background of carefully observed historical reality”. His idea was that Byron would twist the current events of his society as if it was another societies issue and then express his beliefs so that it wouldn’t seem like he was turning on his society. He did this so often that when people explain it they actually call it Byronic. Byron also used puns, rhymes, and imagery in a way that had never been done before. The strength of Byron’s work is due to the strength of his profanity and overall expression of his poetry. One of Byron’s most famous poems is known for its profanity, that poem is Don Juan. The name Juan for the main character and poem is an ironic quotation that transforms into the significance of imperialism into the ‘declaration of symbolic independence’. Byron was good at playing with his words to where they were slightly intriguing to the reader, whomever it was. Donelan It was said that, “Byron’s open-ended, self-conscious, prospective fantasy becomes a strategy for living embodied in a literary experience”. Byron’s style of writing was something never seen before.
Knowing what I know about Byron he was a man of many worlds, he was well educated and had a great desire to be the best. His love for both sexes gave him an advantage in writing his poetry and he always had the audience on edge. He appealed to ever sense both in person and on paper. His style of writing was smooth and thoughtful. The words rolled well off the tongue but also had a deeper purpose and understanding to it. The way he wrote his poetry showed courage and bravery. He boldly expressed his feelings on his topics knowing that he would be judged by his work. He didn’t want to be a poet for a living for this very fact. He would have rather been in debt than be known for his poetry. He hid from the one thing that truly made him happy. But his imagery and ironic description of the current events of the century made everyone want to know more. It’s almost as if Byron was trying to voice his opinion in a way that wouldn’t hurt his reputation. I agree with Donelan, I think that the power Byron held was something that even he didn’t know what to do with. Had his works not been burned we most likely would have read more about his opinions and ideas on ironic topics. He would always be a huge part of the romanticism era. This era itself is said to confront the culture in which the poets viewed nature, religion and politics. This can sometimes be offensive, and the works of Byron mildly play off offensiveness with his irony giving a slight balance.
