Professor David Peimer
Byron, Keats, Shelley: A Poetic Feast

Professor David Peimer - Byron, Keats, Shelley: A Poetic Feast

- So, today, we are going to dive into looking at these three fascinating, intriguing, and quite radical poets for their time. Shelley, Keats and Byron. I’m sure many have studied at school or maybe university or elsewhere. And, for me, it was fascinating to go back to this period of the Romantics and these three, and the next week I’ll look at Coleridge and Wordsworth, in terms of English history and English culture, and this period that they were writing in and their actual poems. And I don’t know how anybody else experienced it, but when we were taught, this is going way back. Many, many decades, centuries ago in South Africa, in Durban, we were never taught the context of when they were living, what was happening in the early 1800s in England or in Europe. Never taught the context about these characters’ lives and what they did and how engaged they were and activists. And, you know, they were not sort of little armchair writers sitting somewhere. I mean, it was so, and quite fascinating to read about this, you know, in preparing for today. So it’s, I’m going to include some aspects of their life and the context of England at the beginning of the 1800s, you know, as part of today, which is, I think, crucial and how it feeds into the poetry. And then look at some of the main poems. I’m sure somebody will, everybody will know Shelley “Ozymandias” and one or two other poems of his. Keats, “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” but also two others as well. And then Byron, of course, some extracts from his great long poem, “Don Juan.” And I guess the last part that I want to look at today is what perhaps resonates for us. You know, my perennial question.

What resonates for us in today’s times that we can glean from these quite remarkable, iconic characters and their poetry, their attitudes to life, what they did. Shelley and Keats, and Byron, for that matter, living very short, brief lives, dying in their mid, late 20s. Byron in his mid 30s. You know, and yet the impact is so huge. Also, don’t want to ignore the cold reality of the times, which is so many people getting tuberculosis, cholera, diseases. You know, so many children dying, parents dying young. Spouses. The extraordinary, you know, what was going on medically, where they were still bleeding the body as a form of, if you like, doctor intervention. So all of this needs to, I think, importantly come together. The one key idea as well is, philosophically, it’s a reaction to the Enlightenment, the Romantics. And this romanticism that they are a part of, Shelley, Keats and Byron, which is happening in art, literature, music, philosophy, a birth of ideas in a way. And it’s happening after the Enlightenment, which, of course, has happened in Europe, parts of England, but has influenced certainly Europe. And it comes to England. And is really not only taken on by the poets in terms of their writing, but their attitude to living and writing essays, philosophical essays, or what we might call articles/essays today. Getting it published in newspapers, magazines, elsewhere, to have an influence, an activist influence, in their society. And they were imbued with a sense of purpose or mission almost to have an activist influence, not just, you know, write these poems. They also come after Coleridge and Wordsworth, who are sort of the elders, poets, of the Romantic period. These three come a bit after that, early 1900s. It’s, and it really starts in a way with 1762, Rousseau, and of course his great book, “The Social Contract.”

And we all know the great line, “Man is born free, but everywhere in chains.” And this romantic, these poets were at the heart of this movement, inspired by a desire for liberty, individual liberty, you know, obviously against rule of, authority rather, of aristocracy and the incredibly strict structure they had inherited. They were against this what they saw as an extreme exploitation of the poor. The importance of the individual, perhaps the most important idea of all. And obviously against imposed conventions, as they might term it. They renounced the rationalism of the Enlightenment era. They saw, especially after the French Revolution, well, where is the role of rationalism after the Reign of Terror of Robespierre and others, and the Reign of Terror and the guillotining, the bloodshed, and then, of course, Napoleon taking over and establishing a military dictatorship in effect. So they are really writing and coming into young adulthood at the time of the Napoleonic era. And that’s crucial because Napoleon is conquering everywhere. He’s invaded Egypt before, and they, of course, are part of England, and then they travelled into Europe and so on. That’s the overall context in a way. And against the rationalism of the Enlightenment period, in favour of stressing the importance of what they might have called in today’s words an authentic personal feeling. They had been supporters of the French Revolution, with the ideals of it. But, of course, the bloody Reign of Terror is what shocks them and takes them out of it in a way completely. Another key idea in the Romantic poetry is Edmund Burke’s, the English philosopher’s, concept of the sublime and beauty.

Where, to put it in essence, where the feelings that people experience when they see beautiful or incredible landscapes, or find themselves in extreme situations, which elicit fear and admiration. It’s that double feeling that is elicited in a more extreme situation. It may be looking at a stunning sunset, a stunning, a lake, a river. It may be seeing something in the filth of the chimney sweepers in London, wherever. But all of these poets, including Blake and Wordsworth before, are influenced by this idea of Burke’s of the sublime and the beauty. It was a 1757 essay, which was about the, in essence, on these topics. And in Burke’s phrase, “It’s the attraction of the immense, "the terrible, and the uncontrollable.” The attraction of the terrible and the uncontrollable, of the immense. The fear and the awe, if we like, that is provoked in human beings in times like this. So this is a reaction against, as I said, the rational thinking of the Enlightenment. And, of course, it’s also reflected in the rise of the gothic novel, Mary Shelley, who in a way blends ideas of the gothic and the romantic with a little bit of realism, but more the gothic and the romantic in her 1818 masterpiece “Frankenstein” that we all know so well. And, of course, that’s Shelley’s wife, and I’m going to show a picture of her shortly. One other idea is the idea of the Byronic or the Byron-type hero, which I think goes into literature afterwards and has come down to our age through the image of the cowboy, the influence, and many, many others, Clint Eastwood image. Which is melancholic, dark, brooding, rebellious. The solitary wanderer hero who represents a generation. And Byron, in a way, although he, in our terms today, he certainly comes from the aristocratic class, and he’s worth millions and millions and millions in our financial equivalent today. He represents that kind of an image.

And for me, that, this image lingers and certainly resonates through film and literature very powerfully today. The Byronic hero. Not naive romantic, but brooding, solitary loner who can engage with all sorts of things, but ultimately is independent and sticks to his or her independent mind and spirit. This became a role model, I think, for youngsters, certainly of his own time. I mean, he would’ve almost been like the equivalent of a rockstar in his own time. And it is I said rockstars, you know, perhaps capture elements of this today. Men seeing him as cool and women perhaps seeing him as enticing. That kind of Byronic image. It’s not a naive romanticism, and that’s very important to me. But I want to debate this question of naivete as well. Were they naive or not? We see the heroes come later, in the 1840s, Heathcliff in Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights,” Rochester in Charlotte Bronte’s, great, great novel, “Jane Eyre.” “Romanticism privileges imagination above reason.” That’s coming from John Keats, quite directly, who wrote about it. “Truth is beauty and beauty truth,” you know, et cetera. It’s imagination. The perception of something beautiful through the imagination can help us cope with the tough times and hard adversities of life. That’s really what he means. It’s not just a naive sense of a, you know, beautiful flower, beautiful smile, raindrops, whatever. It’s a sense of an appreciation of the sublime, as Burke would say. The beauty of it can help us cope better, to balance out times, tough times where life is hard, difficult, life’s contradictions. And that tension is what is so human, And what I think is in these poets. As Blake in “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” wrote in the eighth stanza, “Without contraries, there is no progression.” Without the contradictory elements of human nature, we cannot have a progression. This is not a naive romanticism, which would be much more one thought, one mind, a single perception. You know, everything is beautiful, lovely, romantic love, et cetera. It’s not that. It’s combined with what I’ve just mentioned before. Does it echo at times of the ‘60s, the sort of the dream?

Does it echo times later, our own times, different people, different artists? You know, open to debate, I think. For Keats, it was impossible to find answers to the questions we all have about human existence. But our imagination enables us to know beauty, which helps come in to balance out, as I said, the tough times. It is the perception through imagination of beauty that enables us, in fact, to get through the rough times of life. It’s that balance between life being of pleasure and pain. Emotionally, physically, family-wise, maybe community, nation, whatever, religion, everything. And that’s really the meaning behind “beauty is truth "and truth beauty” in the “Ode To a Grecian Urn” of 1819. And that the individual needs to learn both beauty and truth, but that life is always going to be a ricochet between pleasure and pain. The Romantic poets, I think, perhaps do they continue to exert an influence in popular culture today? People inspired by self-expression, emotional intensity, personal freedom, issues of social justice, the '60s and beyond? Are they just dreamers, naive? Were they just dreamers, naive? I want to look today and try and argue they weren’t just naive. And, of course, their influences were some of the German writers, from Goethe and Schiller, Schiller being the most romantic of all with these ideas of the sublime and beauty. Okay, let’s have a quick look at some of these guys. Here we have Mr. Shelley. Look how young he dies. The bottom two of the pictures, the top is an imagined portrait after his death. With a book and the pen, et cetera. And these are the two, the engravings and the painting as a much younger man of Shelley. Okay, the first one, I’m just going back to Shelley, a little bit about his life first. I’m going to look at his poem “Ozymandias” of 1818 and then briefly “Ode to the West Wind” in 1819 and “Skylark,” 1820.

He also wrote an essay on the necessity of atheism, published essay, which at the times was radical. And it’s one of the reasons why he fled England and went to Europe, as did Byron. And Keats had wanted to and would’ve I think if he had lived longer, but he dies very young. So Shelley, Shelley is the one who is vehemently atheist. And he writes this essay and other pieces, which shocks and causes a scandal. And he’s taken to court. It’s interesting that Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, George Bernard Shaw admired Shelley’s essay, “The Necessity of Atheism” and many others. They’d read, all these people read each other. Shelley’s personal life was about family crises, endless ill health, a backlash against his atheism, his political commitment. And he goes into permanent self exile in Italy in 1818, four years before he dies. He’s the wife of Mary Shelley. And he died in a boating accident in 1822. 'Cause there were a couple of them get in a boat, which Byron owns, but Byron doesn’t go onto it. And they’re obviously useless as sailors. And there’s a big storm and they drown. That’s it. Shelley was, we have record of this clearly. Shelley was very bullied, what we would call bullying at school today. He had rage, attacks of rage, nightmares, hallucinations. 1804, he is at Eton. He’d come from the elite, and they’re going to the elite schools and universities. He recalled with a loathing, and that’s a word from one of his letters. He was called Mad Shelley at school. And he took a teacher and gave him an electric shock. He was so angry. He blew up a tree with gunpowder and so on. His anti-Christian views and his atheistic views were dangerous in this Napoleonic period in England. He’s called to appear before his university’s authorities to answer questions about, you know, pranks, misdeeds, horrible things he’s done. He refuses to answer questions, and that refusal results in his expulsion from Oxford. So these are guys, young, who are not scared for their beliefs. You know, even though they’re going to be expelled from the university, from their society. He gets married to a woman called Harriet Westbrook.

His father, Shelley’s father, cuts off his allowance because of his radical atheistic views. That’s quite something, the allowance is cut completely. So the allowance is cut. He’s writing these atheistic things. He gets expelled from university. I mean, let’s see what’s going on. These guys are not, you know, little mice, little romantic naives. And he manages to survive on borrowed money 'cause he doesn’t make much money through poetry, as I’m sure we all know only to well. He falls in love in 1814 with Mary. She’s 16, and she’s the daughter of the feminist author, the great feminist author, Mary Wollstonecraft. Shelley and Mary elope to Europe, taking Mary’s stepsister, Claire, with them. Claire then has a relationship with Byron 'cause, of course, they shack up with Byron who’s got, you know, villas, and he’s got so much money. He’s got villas, he’s got boats, he’s got so many things. And Claire has a relationship with Byron. Mary’s half-sister Fanny had killed herself. So what goes on in these guys’ lives. Shelley suffered depression, guilt over her death. His first wife, Shelley’s first wife, Harriet, before he marries Mary, drowned herself because she was so freaked out about, you know, being left, basically. The destitute wife, the leftover wife. In Rome, Shelley marries… Sorry, he’s with Mary, is probably or possibly suffering from TB. We’re not totally sure. Shelley’s three-year-old son William died in that same year probably we think of malaria. He hears about the Peterloo massacre happening in Manchester where peaceful protestors were massacred in Manchester. And he wrote the famous poem, “Mask of Anarchy,” which was not published ‘cause the publishers wouldn’t touch it for fear that they would be persecuted.

Mary, his wife, almost dies from a miscarriage. When his body is found 10 days after the boating accident, there’s a copy of Keats’s poetry in his jacket pocket. At the funeral, Mary Shelley did not attend. Byron comes, leaves early. The London newspaper, “The Courier,” wrote the following once they heard the news of Shelley’s death. “Shelley is the writer of infidel poetry. "He has been drowned. "Now he knows whether there is a God or not.” That’s the attitude of England at the time towards his atheism, it will not forgive him. In fact, it’s the equivalent of excommunicated him. He advocated emancipation of Catholics, republicanism, not just parliamentary reform, but republicanism. The extension of the franchise, freedom of speech, an end to aristocratic and clerical privilege. And in the writing, not just in table talk. His advocacy of nonviolent resistance was based on his reflection of the French Revolution that I mentioned earlier. And that’s what influenced, that reading influenced Gandhi and a whole load of others later, the idea of nonviolent resistance, which he wrote about. And his pamphlet, “The Necessity of Atheism,” was withdrawn because they were threatened with court cases, et cetera, after a whole lot of priests complained. He was prosecuted twice by the Society for the Suppression of Vice in 1821. He wasn’t there, but he was prosecuted. Okay, just to give you an idea of what I meant by these activist writers, this is a bit about the life of this guy.

Okay, let’s have a look at one or two of the poems. “Ozymandias,” I’m sure many people know, one of the great, for me, one of the great poems ever written. “I met a traveller from an antique land who said, 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command tell that it’s sculptor well those passions read and yet survive, which yet survive stamped on these lifeless things, the hand that mock them and the heart that fed; and on the pedestal these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.’” As we all know, great Ozymandias, they reckon was based on Ramesses II. ‘Cause Egypt had opened up after the invasion of Napoleon. So there was exotic fascination with Egypt as well, which there had been before, but even more. And Ozymandias was the Greek name for Ramses II of Egypt, who might’ve been around the time of Moses or not. We don’t really know. But, “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” So I was the great king, I could conquer everything. I was the great Ramses. I conquered Egypt all around, et cetera, et cetera. “Well,” says Mr. Shelley, the poet. “What remains?” Huh, nothing. Barely a statue. It’s full of sand. Politics is short, art is long. What remains, a little bit of a memory, vaguely, that’s it. Not even the statue with your inscription on the pedestal. But what does remain? The hand that marked them. That’s the hand of the labourer, the artisan, who made the sculpture of Ozymandias, And the heart that fed. And on the pedestal, these words appear: “King of kings, the great.”

Well, it’s just decaying, it’s just a wreck. Notice even he, what he does, “I met a traveller, the traveller said,” so he puts it in the mouth of a second person, the traveller, not the mouth of the artist. “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert "tell that it’s sculptor well those passions read.” The sculptor understood, this labourer, this artisan, this stone mason who made the sculpture understood. You thought you were such a great, you know, well, what’s going to last? My statue’s going to last much longer, although I’m a totally unknown artisan. Stamped on these lifeless things. The other point I want to make is that this is so cinematic. For me, it’s so contemporary, it’s so filmy. The image, ever since I first read this many decades ago, the image has never left my mind. You know, whenever I see statues to great this or great that, kings, queens, princes, bishops, whatever, you know, whoever, you know, this poem always comes to mind. This short, short poem of Shelley’s of over 200 years ago. So I share that with you as a way of opening that these are not naive thoughts of a young dreamer, romantic only. These are not the naive thoughts of somebody who doesn’t really know about human history. He predicts, if you like, the semi-nihilism of our times. He predicts and sees, well, great dictators, call yourselves Mussolini, Stalin, whoever. You know, Putin, whatever. You see yourselves. Well, what’s going to last, what’s going to happen? You know, he sees it. These dictators, we have so many more images today, obviously because of film, TV, everything, internet, than Shelley would’ve had 200 years ago. He would’ve only had paintings, engravings, or, you know, maybe access to some statues. So I think he predicts this, and he has a cinematic, poetic imagination, which makes him very contemporary as well for me.

Okay, to go on briefly, “Ode to the West Wind,” 1819. “Oh, wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, "make me thy lyre, even as the forest is. "What if my leaves are falling like its own! "The tumult of thy mighty harmonies "Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, "Sweet though in sadness. "Be thou, Spirit fierce. "My spirit! "Be thou me, impetuous one!” He’s talking about himself. Fierce, impetuous. Yes, I’m young, I’m going to, you know, I’ve gone against my father. I’m not taking money from him. I’ve gone against the, I’m atheist and I’ve written about it. I’ve been kicked out of England because of it. “Drive my dead thoughts over the universe "like withered leaves to quicken a new birth. "And, by the incantation of this verse, "Scatter, as from unextinguished hearth "Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! "Be through my lips to unawakened Earth.” So wake up people. It’s after the French Revolution, the ideals of liberty, et cetera. But Napoleon’s a dictator again, what’s happening in England elsewhere, religion? What’s going on in the tumult of our times? “The prophecy, the trumpet of a prophecy! "O Wind, if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” Which is literal and metaphorical, of course. Okay, that’s just from the opening of the poem. “Ode to a Skylark,” 1819. “Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!” And, of course, Noel Coward wrote the play called “Blithe Spirit.” “Bird thou,” to a skylark. “Bird thou never wert that from Heaven or near it. "Higher still and higher "From the earth thou springest like a cloud of fire.” Is that just a beautiful, romantic image, “like a cloud of fire,” or is there something more? “The blue deep thou wingest, "and singing thou dost soar, and soaring ever singest. "In the golden lightning of the sunken sun.” You know, if we think of Rimbaud’s great poem, “the Drunken Poet,” these are full of cascading images and words. Bob Dylan, you know, so many others, poets, who, not scared to bring metaphor, imagery, the cinematic eye, the visual, together with thoughts and ideas.

“Thou dost float and run, "like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.” A little bit of wit thrown in as well. “What thou art we know not,” skylark. “What is most like thee? "From rainbow clouds there flow not "drops so bright to see, as from thy presence "showers a rain of melody.” It’s a stunning image, a rain of melody. “Teach us, Sprite or Bird, what sweet thoughts are thine: "I’ve never heard praise of love or wine "that panted forth the flood of raptures so divine.” I mean, it’s fitting in with the rhyming of the time, but it’s, the language is almost drunk with a desire for joy, a desire for something to rise above. You know, teach us. Well, come on, bird, skylark, you know, teach us. “Teach me half the gladness that thy brain must know; "Such harmonious madness from my lips would flow, "The world should listen then, as I am listening now.” Little moments. Hey, let’s try and imagine the skylark singing, the skylark flying. Is this just a naive, romantic young poet, or is there something more? Is it like D.H. Lawrence’s poem, “The Snake”? “The snake came to my water trough.” And you know, it’s about him and the snake and other things. Walter Stevens, “Waking Up One Morning,” a poem about a frozen plum from the fridge. You know, it’s little moments of life where we can maybe find a bit of beauty. Because so much of life is not. Okay, this is a picture of Mary Shelley. It’s, you know, who, of course, is Shelley’s wife. Elopes with him at the age of 16 or runs off with him, and very young, ends up writing one of the great, great masterpieces of English literature, “Frankenstein.” They all come from fairly privileged backgrounds, from highly educated backgrounds, aware.

And they want to go a step further. Right, moving right along, Mr. John Keats. Look how young. I mean, this guy is 25, 26 when he dies. So these pictures are obviously, so, they’re glorifying the Romantic, sort of looking-out-there image. And I mean, you know, but he’s so young, 25. Maybe this picture was when he was 21, 22, that this is based on. Keats dies of tuberculosis at the age of 25. I’m going to look at two of his, couple of his poems. 1804, his father died from a skull fracture when he fell from his horse. 1810, so Keats was eight when his father dies. Keats was 14 when his mother dies of tuberculosis. He inherits some money from his mother and from his grandfather. And he, 1815, he registers as a medical student at Guy’s Hospital in London. Gets a licence to practise as a physician, a surgeon, apothecary. But he chooses poetry over practising as a physician. For him, what I spoke about earlier, the influence of Burke, truth and beauty and imagination is all there. And he writes the great poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” He gave up medicine for poetry, and he looks after his brother Tom, who also has tuberculosis, and he nurses his brother day in and day out. And probably where he contracted TB himself. But he goes almost every day to nurse his brother. How many would do that today? It’s often, he also met Wordsworth and the others. Because of his own TB, he was advised by doctors to go to a warmer climate. So in 1820, six months before he dies, he goes off for Rome, and he died there five, six months later. The woman that he was seeing, Fanny Brawne, you know, he had left to try and basically see if he could do anything about his health. But there was true love between them from what I can understand of their letters. And she mourned him for the next six years. She was back in England.

In Rome, a doctor put him on a starvation diet, and this is part of the gossip for today, of anchovy and a piece of bread a day, intended to reduce the blood flow to his stomach. They also, of course, bled the poet, which was part of the standard treatment of the times. As Keats wrote, “How long is this posthumous existence of mine to go on?” In a letter. Tennyson called Keats the greatest poet of the 19th century in England. He became the muse of Wilfred Owen, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats and others. And Keats wrote, “the poetic mind will shock the virtuous philosopher. "It delights the poet. "The poetic mind relishes the dark side of things "and has a taste for the bright.” So, again, without contraries there’s no progressing. These guys are not unaware of the tough, hard times of life. His brother’s dying. He’s getting TB, you know, all of this stuff that’s going on. And they know where, you know, tuberculosis is going to lead to, of course. And other diseases. They know the foul rag and bone letter of the heart, to paraphrase W.B. Yeats. And how hard it is and what’s really going on. Not only this glorious beginning of the 19th century, leading to defeat of Napoleon, England taking over, becoming the great beginnings really in a way of the great imperial power. They see the filth, “The Chimney Sweeper” poem of Blake and many others. The dark satanic mills that Blake writes about. They see it all. Okay, to have a look at some of Keats’s poetry. “First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.” So Chapman was the translating of Homer’s great, of course, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Much of our, these guys were infatuated in a way, or obsessed, perhaps, to put it more mildly, with the, with Ancient Greece, especially, more than Rome. I don’t know if that’s where Shelley got, you know, the word Ozymandias from. I’m not sure. “Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, "and many goodly states and kingdoms seen, "around many western isles have I been "that deep-browed Homer ruled; "yet did I never breathe its pure serene "till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold.” About Homer, you know, and, for me, the beginnings of Western civilization in literature, “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey,” remarkable pieces. “Then felt-eyed like some watcher of the skies "when a new planet swims into his ken; "or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes "he stared at the Pacific and all his men” “looked at each other with a wild surmise. "Silent upon a peak in Darien. So he’s, it’s, again, it’s a cinematic imagination. There’s Cortez, you know, conquering South America, seeing the Pacific. There’s new planets swimming around, you know. Forget the religions, forget the gods and so on. It’s atheism and conquest and imperial, exploring of the world together with all, you know, the greatness and grandeur of that together with the horror it brings. But it’s coming through. That he’s experiencing it. That’s what’s fascinating to me about Keats. To experience life literally all the time evinced through poetry. "Ode to a Nightingale,” from the opening of the poem.

“My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains "my sense as though of hemlock I had drunk "or emptied some dull opiate to the drains. "One minute passed and Lethe-wards had sunk: "Tis not through envy of thy happy lot.” He’s talking to the nightingale. “It’s not through envy of thy happy lot.” I’m not envious of you, nightingale. “But being too happy in thine happiness.” It’s not too happy in your happiness. Okay, naive, maybe. “That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees "in some melodious plot of beechen green "and shadows numberless singest of summer "in full-throated ease.” You just have to sing of summer in full-throated ease. That’s all you have to do. It’s like a melodious play. You know, I’m envious of you. That’s all you need to do. Can’t I just be one-minded? Do I have to have contraries? Do I have to have the light, the shade, the, all the rest of human nature? It’s a hopeful wish. John Lennon, “you may say I’m a dreamer, "but I’m not the only one.” Okay, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” 1819, the great poem. Looking at an urn from Ancient Greece. “Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness.” It’s a bride this urn that he’s looking at. “Thou foster child of silence and slow time.” I mean, those images just burn in, and they’re so visual to me. “What leaf-fring’d legend haunts thy shape "Of deities or mortals, or of both.” What’s really inside you, this little urn? Look at cave paintings, pictures, drawings on a Greek urn or whatever it is. You know, what’s going on there in the imagination of people painting and doing these things? “What men or gods are these? "What maiden’s loth? "What mad pursuit? "What struggle to escape? "What pipes and timbrels? "What wild ecstasy?” What possesses somebody to paint an urn?

Don’t need to. We can just use it as functional. You know, there it is, it’s an urn. Today we can have, you know, microwave, we can have phones, we can, you know, but what possesses anybody? You can spend so much time painting with a hand and little brush in those ancient times, painting these pictures? Why do it? Don’t have to. What’s going on there? He’s trying to inspire or provoke that poetic imagination in us through experiencing, looking at the urn. “Who are these coming to the sacrifice?” What is this here on this little urn? “To what green altar, O mysterious priest. "What little town by river or sea shore "Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?” And, little town, thy streets for evermore “will silent be and not a soul to tell. "Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. "Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought.” It, teasing us these pictures on the cave, on the urn, all these ancient images, tease us. “As doth eternity.” Flips from the immediate looking at a tiny little urn, which has got a couple of little drawings by some guy hired to paint a few things thousands of years ago, to eternity suddenly. That’s so contemporary, to make those quick leaps in space and time. “When old age shall this generation waste.” Suddenly, we’re into old age. Suddenly, I’m not the youthful poet anymore. “Thou shalt remain in midst of other woe, "than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st.” And then comes the great philosophical Chinese cookie. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, "that is all you know on earth, and all ye need to know.” Just to put there, I think, as a tempting feast of what does this mean? Is this just a clever little phrase, an aphorism, or is there something more, what I spoke about earlier, or not? But it’s that link because this romantic image of poetry, but truth is not romantic necessarily. Truth can be pretty horrific. So he’s playing with us. Coming out of looking at this little picture of the drawings on the urn to come up with this at the end. Okay, that’s from Mr. Keats. Moving on to Mr. Lord George Byron. And I love these images of Byron because this is the Byron hero, the romantic image, you know, and I see it in a young Brando, in a young, so many of these others. You know, James Dean, et cetera. You know, this, this… But it’s not just a physically very weakened character. It’s not at all. It’s melancholic, but it’s brooding. It’s the iconic image of the loner, the individual, the seer.

Byron insisted that no artist ever paint him with a pen or book. Always had to be this kind of image of the man of action, as he called it in one of his letters. He wanted to be seen as that, and of course playing the part. And I think he played, for what it was worth, he played it brilliantly. On the bottom left is him in an Albanian traditional clothing. So these images of Byron, for me, capture, and he knows what he’s doing by getting these artists to paint him like this, Mr. Byron. He, of course, the great long poem, “Don Juan,” which I’m going to look at briefly in a moment or two. He also goes to Cambridge, then he goes to Italy, where he lived for seven years in Venice, Ravenna, Pisa. He was forced to flee England, not because of political beliefs or social like the others, or like Shelley, but because of scandals. Because he was, he had so many, let’s call it romantic sexual liaisons, with so many women, and scandals, marrying women for money, liaisons, relationships. And, you know, then in the end, he just had to get out of there. He finally, in 1824, well, just before he joins the Greek War of Independence 'cause they were fighting the Ottoman Empire. Got to remember this is 1824. So it’s a short time after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. And he dies. And he didn’t die in battle physically. He was there really to raise money and give money to the Greeks. And he gave money to refit their navy to help the soldiers pay, salaries, et cetera. It was really to help bring money in. 'Cause he came from very, very wealthy aristocratic background. And he basically dies of a terrible cold, which turns into pneumonia, we think, and dies. A fever, as it’s called at the time.

So he’s not literally in the trenches, but he has gone there to help people fighting for independence for a myriad of reasons. But he’s 36. To show you here, this is a picture of his mother, Catherine Gordon, and his father, Captain, so-called Mad Jack Byron. Out of these two comes the guy I just showed you. I mean, we couldn’t make, if we took the script to Hollywood, I don’t, I think they would throw it out, you know, if he hadn’t lived. His mother was the heiress of a massive estate in Aberdeenshire in Scotland. His father was obviously a ship captain, and he set a new speed record for circumnavigating the globe. He was involved in the American Revolutionary War. He was nicknamed Captain Mad Jack. Another name was Captain Foul Weather Jack. Married Catherine for her fortune and to pay his debts basically. And his son inherited that tendency. Byron was born with a deformed right foot, as we all know. He goes to Harrow School, one of the elite of the elites. He goes to Cambridge, and he’s mostly known for boxing, gambling, horse riding and sexual relationships left, right and centre. Even his mother wrote that he was, “He had a reckless disregard for money.” 1812, he publishes, I’m going to go back to the picture of him. 1812, he publishes “The Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.” Became a celebrity in 1812 in London. And one of the newspapers wrote, the most, “Byron is the most,” Lord Byron, “the most brilliant star in our dazzling world of London.” He had an affair with Lady Caroline Lamb, I’m sure we all know, perhaps seen in the movie. And she famously wrote about Byron that Byron was “mad, bad and dangerous to know.” Words that have come down over 200 years in history. “He was mad, bad and dangerous to know.”

And he had other lovers, and he was pressed by debt. So he has to go out and find what would be called then a suitable marriage. He marries a woman called Annabella, who’s an heiress, very, very wealthy, but he’s obsessed with another woman, Augusta Leigh. And life is a misery at home. Annabella, after the marriage, much later, wrote that she considered Byron, “I consider my husband to be insane,” in the letter. Because of the scandal of the separation, the debts, he feels forced to leave England in 1816, never returns. As I said earlier, he made friends with Shelley and Shelley’s wife Mary, and he has this big affair with Mary Shelley’s stepsister, Claire. One night, because of pouring rain, is when the three of them are stuck, the four of them, are stuck in his villa, mansion. And they play with stories, fantastical, gothic. And that’s when the story of Frankenstein begins for Mary. 1820. Sorry, before that, he meets a 22-year-old Italian lady. Margarita Cogni. Marries her. She’s married, she’s left her husband for Byron. And she moves in with him. Then later Byron’s says, “Look, can you move out?” She threw herself into a canal in Venice, drowns. 1820, he meets the 18-year-old Countess Teresa Guiccioli, forgive my pronunciation. It’s, and he asks her to elope with him. Shelley, who is visiting and staying with him on and off during this period, wrote in a letter, just give you an idea of the wealth and the guy’s life. “Byron gets up at two in the afternoon. "We have breakfast. "We talk until six. "From six to eight, we gallop on his horses "through the pine forest near the sea.

"We come home and dine. "We sit up gossiping till six in the morning again. "Byron’s home consists of servants, I lose count, 10 horses, "eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, "an eagle, a crow, a falcon, and all of these, "except the horses, walk around the house "as if they were the masters of the house. "Byron, it seems, is not.” So I give you an idea of he has an irreverent, ironic, satirical, perhaps cynical attitude to life. He is a, this, in his own mind, an action hero, a romantic poet, come down through the ages. And these are people who knew him so well, so friendly with him, so close. This is a picture of him on the left landing in Greece. Well, a painting. Byron, of course, in the middle. Landing and meeting the Greek general and some of the army around. You know, this incredibly wealthy English aristocrat arrives to give them money and support their cause for independence against the Ottomans. In the middle is a grotto in Italy. It’s now called Byron’s grotto. And on the right, this incredibly romantic picture of the dying Byron. The rest of the picture, the club foot, is not shown. But this very romantic, almost Christ-like figure in a certain way. So the painters are showing a certain image of the guy. This is a picture of, you know, some of the women that he was involved with. On the top right hand corner, in the middle, more or less, that’s Lady Caroline Lamb. And some of the others are his first wife and the others, you know, et cetera. And on the right is the 18-year-old Countess Teresa, the final one that he elopes with. And it’s on the right-hand side there. And these are some of the other women that he was involved with. Lady Caroline Lamb with the black hair with her head slightly tilted like that. And the Lady Oxford is the one on the, underneath Caroline Lamb, Lady Oxford. Augusta Leigh, bottom left. And the woman he married, top left in the blue dress, Annabella. So just to give you a bit of an image, a bit of an idea of this guy’s life, of his life. Of course, the Byronic hero has fascinated the public ever since.

Annabella, his wife, the blue dress, she coined the phrase Byronmania. That’s where Beatlemania, all the other manias we read of today, comes from 200 years ago. Annabella coined the phrase Byronmania. See he was like a rockstar of his time, completely. And this hero is the idealistic, flawed character, disdain, dismissive of social institutions, of laws and rules, lack of respect for rank and privilege, although he possesses both and wealth. Kind of rebellious in exile, but very rich. A secret past in arrogance, lack of foresight. This goes on and on, not only through the examples I gave you in literature of, with “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights,” you know, Heathcliff and Rochester. But I think it speaks to the Western iconic images of the cowboy and so many others of today. Okay, I want to read a little bit to share together as the last thing for today. A couple of these verses from Byron’s great long poem, “Don Juan.” And it’s not by chance that Byron would write, Mr. Byron, would write one of the great English poems called “Don Juan.” 'Cause of course he sees himself as one, but in the end even that’s not enough. And he has to go off and help the Greeks. At least with independence. And I guess it’s like a rockstar today with popularising their cause for freedom. It’s one of the reasons I think these characters do resonate for us today. So canto 11 in “Don Juan.” “Forever,” and I’ve edited quite a bit here. “Forever and anon comes indigestion, "of soarings with another sort of question. "And that which my spirit is vexed. "Of beings, this unriddled wonder, the world, "which at the worst is a glorious blunder.”

He’s so witty and ironic and satirical. The world is, at its worst, a glorious blunder. You know, you hear that phrase, it sticks forever. Ever since I first read that so many decades ago, a glorious blunder is the world, you know. But his attitude in using the rhyme to be ironic, satirical and witty, very different to Keats and Shelley. But, of course, you know, they’re dying, and they come from a much harder background than Byron. To go on. “If it be chance or if it be according to the old text.” And he means the Bible. “According to the old text, "still better lest it should turn out so "we’ll say nothing against the wording of the old text "as several people think such hazards a bit rude.” So it’s rude to write about the old Bible, the old texts. It’s not blaspheming, it’s not against the laws, against, he does not care about that. He’s mocking, in the, and is ridiculing that it’s rude to write about atheism and anti-Christianity. He goes on. “The first attack at once provoked the divinity, "but that I never doubted nor the devil. "The next, the virgin’s mystical virginity.” Virgin Mary, of course. “The third, the usual origin of evil.” The tree of knowledge, the apple. “The fourth at once established the whole trinity. "So incontrovertible a level, "on so incontrovertible a level "that I devoutly wished the three were four "on purpose to believe so much them all more than four.” He’s completely playing and ridiculing Christianity at its, you know, at its core. The virginity, the trinity, holy trinity, all of that. “Don Juan had got out where London streets ferment "in full activity heard that bee-like bubbling, "busy hum of cities that boiled over with their scum. "Don Juan wrapped in contemplation walked on "behind his carriage over the summit, and lost in wonder "of so great a nation gave way to it "since he could not overcome it. "And here he cried 'In England is freedom’s chosen station!

"With its racks, prisons, inquisitions.’” Always playing with the double, the light and the shade. “Some rumours also of some strange,” going on with the poem. “Some rumour also of some strange adventures "had gone before him and his wars and loves. "He found himself extremely in the fashion, "which serves our thinking people for a passion.” He’s so ridiculing how the masses are so equally sucked into or seduced by passion and dream and fantasy and rockstar image and all of that. And of course his own self. He can be ironic and self-satirical about himself, Byron. And it’s that wit that I love about this guy. “Now, what I love in people,” going on with “Don Juan.” “What I love in people is that they won’t "or can’t do otherwise than lie, but they do it so well "the very truth seems falsehood to it. "And after all, what is a lie? "Tis but the truth in masquerade, "and I defy historians, heroes, lawyers, priests "to put a fact without some leaven of a lie.” It’s just the wit of the satire. “Don Juan was a bachelor, which is a matter of import "both to virgin and to bride. "But Juan was a bachelor of arts. "He danced and sung and had an air "as sentimental as Mozart’s softest of melodies. "And he could be sad or cheerful, had seen the world, "which is a curious sight and very much unlike "what people write.” It’s playful, witty, and provocative. “Fair virgins blushed upon him. "Wedded dames bloomed, daughters admired his dress, "and pious mothers inquired his income "and if he had some brothers. ”‘Talk not of 70 years as aged. “'In seven I have seen more changes down ”'from monarchs to the humblest individuals under heaven,’ “said Juan.

"Change grows changeable without being new. "Nothing’s permanent among the human race, "except the Whigs not getting into place.” “Nothing’s permanent among the human race "except the Whigs,” the British political party, “not getting into place.” It’s a complete, playful, ridiculing, maybe a bit like “Monty Python,” “Blackadder.” You know, so many of the comics today of the social mores of our times, of his times. He goes on, Juan. “I have seen the landholders,” now he gets serious. “I have seen the landholders without a wrap. "The House of Commons turned into a tax trap. "I’ve seen crowns worn instead of a fool’s cap. "I’ve seen the landholders without a wrap. "I’ve seen the country gentleman turned squeakers. "I’ve seen the people ridden o'er "like sand by slaves on horseback. "I’ve seen the people ridden over like sand "by slaves on horseback.” Suddenly he can become so serious, and then back to the wit. Reminds me of Allen Ginsburg poem, “Howl.” “I’ve seen the best minds of my generation,” et cetera, influenced by these guys. They would’ve all read them. The poem goes on. “But carpe diem.” We all know that great phrase carpe diem, seize the day. “‘But carpe diem,’ Don Juan cried. ‘Carpe diem, life’s a poor player, then play out the play. But above all, keep a sharp eye, be hypocritical, be cautious, but always be not what you’ve seen, but always what you see.’” So with the wit and with the irony and the satire come these little gems of insight, advice, like with the other poem. “Truth is beauty, beauty truth.” Like that comes this wit, comes this little philosophical insight because he’s part of the philosophy of Burke and others of the movement.

“And life’s a poor player.” Direct reference to Shakespeare, Macbeth. “Life’s but a walking shadow, "poor player who struts and frets his our upon the stage "and then is heard no more.” And then at the end of the poem, “There are those who love. "There are those who love to say that white is black. "So I may stand alone, "but would not change my free thoughts "for anybody’s throne.” Okay, this is just to give you a little taste, a poetic taste, a little bit of a feast, of these three guys of the Romantic era. I would argue that they’re not naive. They understand all the different shades of life and trying to grapple with their times. And they’re actively engaged with the life of their times. The politics, the massive social changes, the Napoleonic period and, of course, the brevity of their own lives and how absolutely, you know, life’s a brief candle. And the awe and shock and horror and glorious blunder that life can become. Okay, now I’m imbued with all of those guys. We can take some of these questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Jack. “With all respect, David, "I find it amusing thinking you can cover them in an hour.” Well, that’s a great point, Jack. And of course, you know, it’s probably, it’s way, to put it mildly, over ambitious, if not ridiculously so. But I hope by teasing together some of the main ideas of these guys, we can start to see some of the links. But, of course, one can spend, you know, six months on just one of them. I agree.

Rita. Great, let’s have this debate whether David can cover it or not. You’ll email me and tell me, did I cover it or not? There’s both sides of the debate.

Margaret. “My schooling was during the ‘50s in England. "Neither did we ever learn any context "relating to the poets.” Well, Margaret, that’s what’s fascinating to me. I mean, I learned these guys, well, looked at their poems from high school and university and so on, but never, nothing about their lives, nothing about the period they lived in or the Romantic movement. Nothing. So I hope by giving it that, okay, we can see their poetry and their lives in relation to their period, which I, text and context is what I believe in.

Sylvia. “Hi David, I’m Sylvia from Buenos Aires.” Ah, thank you. Thank you for your email the other day. “Blake coincided with the Hegelian idea of thesis, "antithesis, synthesis.” Absolutely, they were contemporaries. Absolutely, the Hegelian idea of the dialectic. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

Susan, “Same image in Streetcar.” Yep, exactly. Sandy, “My schooling was the same, "but the quality depends on the teacher.”

Thank you, Ms. Bloomfield, I agree. Oh God, the teachers we had. Northland’s Boys High. Sylvia. “What they were saying was nasty to the prevailing power.” Exactly.

Susan, “Maybe all our politicians should read Shelley. "The artisans are the ones who are remembered.”

Judith. William Carlos Williams and “The Plum.” Sorry, not Wallace Stevens, apologies. You’re right, it’s William Carlos Williams. Thanks for that, Judith.

Margaret. “Debussy wrote a prelude, Canopic, about an urn, "which pairs very well with Keats’s poem.” Thank you, I’ll listen.

Q: Anne, “Have you seen the film about Keats and Fanny?”

A: I haven’t.

Yeah, “Bright Star,” which was the name of one of his poems. “Bright Star.” “Gorgeous images of bluebells in the fields.” Lovely.

Heather. It’s, “When my dad was a boy growing up in Toronto, "he found a box of old books in the basement "of my grandparents’ house. "It’s an ancient compound of all Byron’s works. "The pages are yellowed and withered, "and it was published after his Byron’s death. "I was told it may be the first anthology, "was found and sold, at least 175 years old.” Wow, that’s extraordinary, thank you. Lockdown is fascinatingly brilliant. The connections we all make.

Penny. Am I the son of my piano teacher Gaby Piemer. Gaby was my father’s cousin. And he was the jazz musician who lived in Johannesburg and my father’s relation. That’s extraordinary, Penny.

Q: Rod, “Did Byron swim the Venice Canal?”

A: I don’t know. I just know that she drowned herself in it.

Karen, “With all those animals trotting around his house, "it’s not surprising Byron got sick. "I wonder if other people who visited "caught something as well.” Quite possibly. But certainly the food.

Q: Donald, “Is it true that Byron was fat?”

A: I don’t know because it’s hard to say what was fat those days, 200 years ago and today. I don’t think he was over fat though. I mean, he wasn’t, you know, physically limited.

Margaret, “Thanks.”

Janet, “Byron was very overweight in his youth.” Ah. “He lost the weight to be attractive to women. "He insisted on taking a pet to Cambridge. "I think it was a monkey.” That’s great, thanks, Janet. I appreciate it.

Nancy, “Lady Caroline Lamb was the wife of William Lamb, "Viscount Melbourne, later England’s Prime Minister.” Yep. And she was the one who famously called Byron “mad, bad and dangerous.”

Maria, “All of these three poets are very beautiful.” Yep. Maria, “Almost feminine features.” Yep.

Alison. “I studied the 1820s Romantic poets for A Levels. "They were perceived as radicals except for Wordsworth.” Yep. Well, great, then you had a wonderful teacher, Alison. They were. In their time, they were certainly seen as radicals, except for Wordsworth, Coleridge, mixture. We’ll get onto that next week. G. Book.

Q: “Would Byron have been influenced by the wit "and satire of Pope?”

A: Yes, I think so.

Linda, “The feminism that Mary addressed in Frankenstein "can be addressed in their poems.” That’s very interesting, I don’t know. Need to have a look and find out. But certainly she came from a very strong, I mean, her family was very, you know, was amongst the beginning of what we might call feminism of the last two centuries. Very strongly for women’s rights.

Catherine, “Keats was put on a starvation diet. "Was maybe what we would nowadays "refer to intermittent fasting.” You know, it didn’t cure him. Yeah, well, it was, you know, for TB, exactly.

Celine, “I wonder what poems they would’ve written "had they reached old age.” That is a fascinating thought, which I’ve often wondered. You know, if they’d grown much older, the times would’ve changed so much in England and Europe. The Victorian era would’ve come to, you know. Much would’ve changed, I imagine.

Sandy. “Byron swam the Hellespont, not the Venetian canal.” Ah, thank you.

Okay, thank you very much, everybody, for sharing this little bit of a feast on these poets, and hope you are well and have a great rest of the weekend. Take care.