Byron as a Romantic Neo-classicist poet

George Gordon Lord Byron was one of the major poets of the Romantic era. The Romantic period is considered to be the best period of English literature. At this age, Byron is considered a poet as equally talented as Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth. However, Byron was against romanticism though he was a romantic poet. In his poems, we see features of the romantic period and Neo-classical period as well. 

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Don Juan is one of the famous works of Byron. Byron himself considered it as an “Epic Satire”. This poem is considered anti-romantic for there are very few instances of romantic ideals. One of the major romantic features of this poem is the effective use of Byron’s imagination. The poem contains a beautiful description of nature and ordinary people. These are some of the few notable features of Romanticism in Don Juan. Canto I of Don Juan contains some features of Romanticism. Byron also talked about the necessity of individual freedom and the freedom of women.

It is true that Canto I contains many instances of the Neo-classical age and anti-romantic sentiments. At the end of Canto I, Byron severely criticized his contemporary poets. He criticized Wordsworth and Coleridge. Both Wordsworth and Coleridge were the most important poets of the romantic era and were considered pioneers of the Romantic movement. Wordsworth’s “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” is considered to be the starting point of the Romantic movement. Coleridge also had major contributions in making the Romantic movement popular in English literature. However, Byron believed that both Wordsworth and Coleridge were not so successful as poets. He was a follower of Dryden, Milton and Pope. Dryden, Milton and Pope belonged to the Neo-Classical age. They wrote about people. The first thing that we would notice about Don Juan is that it mainly focuses on urban life. All the characters of this poem were city dwellers, and their problems were very similar to the problems of people living in cities at that time. The problems were related to love and morality. In the Romantic age, Wordsworth and Coleridge focused on morality in their poems, but Byron represented reality and often used wits. Don Juan is a satirical poem and neither Wordsworth nor Coleridge could write such satirical poems. On the contrary, Pope and Dryden were famous for their satires and wits. In this regard, there are many similarities between Byron and Pope and Dryden.

There are some descriptions of nature in Don Juan, but the poem mainly focuses on humans. Here, nature is inorganic. It has no life or power. On the other hand, in the poems of Wordsworth and Coleridge, nature is very much alive. Byron also used imagination in a different manner compared to Wordsworth and Coleridge. In the poems of Wordsworth and Coleridge, imagination played a critical role. However, in Canto I of Don Juan, Byron used his imagination, but he tried to portray the real world as much as possible.

Though Byron is considered anti-classical, through Don Juan, he attempted to go beyond Neo-Classical and Romantic ideals. He composed such a poem that is very unique in English literature. Don Juan made him one of the most important poets of English literature. It is considered a masterpiece where we see that Byron tried to create a new kind of poetry that had not been written before. Even after Don Juan, we have not seen any poetry that can be considered equal to Don Juan.

Two major female characters received major attention in Canto I of Don Juan. One of them is Donna Inez, Don Juan’s mother. The other female character is Donna Julia, Don Juan’s lover. Through these two female characters, Byron started a new era in English literature. Before this, females or ordinary people did not receive much importance in poems. Women were either presented as queens or lady love. However, the individualism of Donna Julia and Donna Inez was never seen before in English literature.