'Mad, bad, and dangerous to know...,' this was how Lady Caroline Lamb described her lover Lord Byron. Was this epithet really accurate? Did it also apply to the other Romantic poets?
The Romantic poets have often been called the first hippies. Romanticism, a reaction against Classicism which favoured order, structure and elegance of expression, stood for freedom of expression, writing about feelings, sensitivity and the beauty and sublimity of nature. Often revolutionary politics and Romanticism went together. The first generation of Romantic poets were Wordsworth and the drug-addicted Coleridge. Wordsworth, impressed by the French Revolution, wrote: "Bliss was it then to be alive," but changed his mind later disgusted by its horrors. Coleridge's politics were never as radical but his poetry inspired by fantasy and dreams typified Romanticism.
Byron, Shelley and Keats were the 'Second Generation' of Romantic poets. Byron, the Sixth Baron Byron, was the son of a mad father who married his wife for money, then squandered it, eventually dying in Europe in poverty. Byron's mother was left to raise her son in poor circumstances in Scotland. As she was promiscuous and vulgar Byron didn't care for her greatly. In fact a psychiatrist would have a field day working out how Byron's childhood affected his life.
At the age of ten Byron inherited the Gothic and debt-ridden Newstead Abbey. In spite of his club foot and lameness, the young boy was a keen cricketer and played for his school, Harrow, in the first cricket match between Harrow and Eton. Unfortunately Eton won. Afterwards the young boys drank together in usual school boy rowdiness and annoyed theatre-goers by turning up at a play drunk and making a lot of noise!1.
After receiving his degree at Cambridge Byron went on his Grand Tour of Europe where the Greek fight for independence impressed him. A young radical and rebel, he always favoured Napoleonic politics and in his role as politician in the House of Lords, he spoke in favour of workers who destroyed machinery in protest at the advance of technology and the emancipation of Roman Catholics. An atheist and free thinker, the handsome, young man became the toast of London with the publication of Childe Harold, a satire of the Establishment.
Lady Caroline's phrase was true as regards her relationship with Lord Byron but perhaps she only had herself to blame? Older than Byron and married to Lord Melbourne, albeit unhappily, she determined to become Byron's lover. Byron fell for this slim, golden-haired beauty but tired of her when refusing to admit the affair was over she made scenes in public places even attempting suicide at a dance at one stage.
