Byron's poetics

Abstract

The following study is an examination of Byron's work, his letters and journals as well as his poetry, to discover his poetic theory. While he opposed 'systems and system-spinners' and held as inviolable truth that the poet was not bound by any rules of poetry, Byron nevertheless thought about and commented frequently on those concerns that ordinarily engage aesthetic theorists. It is difficult to think of a poet who left so many observations on the nature of poets, the purpose and value of poetry, the creative process, and the relation between the poet and his audience, without expressing his views in a formalised statement.

When his random and often contradictory opinions about poetry are collected together, we have evidence of a poetic theory steadily evolving from his juvenile years towards the inimitable perfection of his final days to demonstrate that Byron took poetry more seriously than has been generally assumed. He has left a fairly comprehensive aesthetics of poetry that shows him sometimes aligned in theory with his contemporaries, at other times adhering to practices of the previous age, but frequently anticipating the views of modern poets. In the end, Byron's poetics is an eclectic theory that serves his personal need to see poetry as a worthwhile action. His final poetic theory was hard-won in contention against his own resistance to a poetic career, against public opinion and his susceptibility to that, and against a publisher concerned for profito. We can trace his poetics through the changes in the early, middle, and last stages, as Byron comes to terms with all the forces which both oppose and goad him on in his longing "to do some good" in the world.