George
Gordon Byron was born in 1788 while London, already in the late eighteenth
century, was becoming Europe's most densely populated city. Byron, who
was of noble birth, had a particularly restless nature and rebelled against
all established rules already in his early childhood: two constant features
which he continued to display throughout his life. He studied at Harrow
and Cambridge and before turning twenty he published “Hours of Idleness”
(1807), a collection of poems which was harshly criticised. Byron answered
with the satiric poem “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” (1809). He later
took his seat in the house of lords but soon preferred to begin a long
journey which took him in various places in Europe and the East. A charming
and daring man, he embodied the Romantic hero par excellence.
A large number of poetic
works written in the first part of his life now remain to us: the first
two cantos of “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage” (1812), with which his popularity
began, “The Giaour”, “The Bride of Abydes”, “The Corsair”, “The Siege of
Corinth”, Oriental tales that made him extremely famous.
After the failure of his
marriage with Miss Milbanke and the scandal that followed, he was forced
to leave England and went to Belgium, Switzerland and Italy where he wrote
a second group of poems: “The prisoner of Chillon”, the third canto of
“Childe Harold's Pilgrimage”, “The rooms at Augusta”, and also the drama
“Manfred” (1817). George Byron was one of the few Romantic poets who, along
with Shelley, showed an interest in theatre and, at the same time, also
managed to become rather successful.
“Manfred” is a poetic drama
that he wrote in 1816-1817 whose leading character's anguished tones somehow
remind the reader of Goethe's Faust. Byron outlined this character as eternally
striving to achieve the unattainable peace of the soul, a man who does
not fear God, a desperate man who cannot find a way to draw close again
to the Higher Entity, not even when death is nearing.
Among the other works he
wrote, it is worth mentioning “Beppo” (1818), a satiric tale, “Mazeppa”
(1819), “Don Juan” (1819-1824), an unfinished work that stands out for
Byron's incredible capability to deal with the themes of the burlesque
poem, sketching out a fierce satire of the English society, the dramas
“The Two Foscari”, “Sardanapalus” and “Marino Faliero”, all dating 1821,
and the two mysteries “Cain” (1821) and “Werner” (1823).
During the last period of
his life, Byron established a relationship with the heads of the Italian
Carboneria and he too participated in the riots that took place in 1820-21.
In 1823 he went to Greece to head a rebellion to achieve independence but
he died of a fever at Missolungi in 1824.
The drama “Marino Faliero”
was Byron's only play performed while the author was still alive. It deals
with the history of doge Marino Falier who, around 1354, hatched a conspiracy
in Venice and tried to seize power against the aristocratic oligarchy which
was ruling the city. For this reason he was executed.
There is another Anglo-Saxon
famous poet who, in the Romantic period, tried to write dramas: Percy Bisse
Shelley. He was born in Sussex in 1792 from a noble landowner family, studied
at Eton and later at Oxford where he was expelled following the publication
of “The Necessity of Atheism” (1811). He was a writer with revolutionary
ideas, permeated by various philosophical currents such as Spinoza's pantheism.
He continued to be faithful to the different aspirations after liberty
of oppressed people. He was drowned in La Spezia's gulf when he was thirty
(1822).
The lyrical drama “Prometheus
Unbound” and “The Cenci” are the works Shelley wrote as a playwright. In
the first work Shelley re-examined Aeschylus' myth permeating him with
a new religious freshness: the whole story is not overshadowed by a gloomy
pessimism, the author hopes man can get rid of a stereotyped vision of
the divinity and might head towards the discovery of a God that can be
love above all things.
In the second tragedy Shelley
compares Francesco and Beatrice Cenci, who embody Evil and Rebellion respectively.
Francesco is permeated by a satanic fury that leads him to commit incest
while rebel Beatrice is overwhelmed and defeated, wrapped by the terror
that Evil might rule even in the next world.
|
|
|
Only Italian
Italian - English
Mensile di Economia, Attualita` e Cultura
