Prometheus

Fighting with the Gods against his own kind, he was spared a punishment, yet fair share of wrongdoing sets his penalty.  The Titan Prometheus experienced torture as his liver prevailed through the beaks of an eagle on top of Mount Caucasus.  He could not escape, because of the impenetrable chain that confined him to a rock.  Each day his liver would grow back, and he would experience the torture again because of his immortality.  In Lord Byron's poem "Prometheus", he describes Prometheus' crime and punishment.  After researching Prometheus in Greek mythology, I reread the poem to find out the point.  The poem focuses on the reasoning for Prometheus’ crime and punishment.  In this blog I will review and evaluate some of the lines from the poem "Prometheus". 

In lines five through 11 it explains how Prometheus gained nothing but pride, when helping mankind.  Heaven symbolizes Zeus, ruler of the sky, rain God, and the supreme ruler of Gods.  Zeus punishes those who commit crimes, lie, or break oaths.  In the end he controls one’s fate, and no one can persuade him otherwise; therefore explaining lines 17 and 18.  Zeus thought suffering for all eternity held a better punishment rather than death for Prometheus clarifies lines 23 and 24.  To clear up lines 26-29, “the Thunderer” also symbolizes Zeus.  Prometheus means “forethought”; thus having the ability to foretell the future, and signifying he knew what Zeus would do to him.  Before Prometheus’ punishment, Zeus ordered Prometheus to create mankind, explaining lines 47-50. 

I enjoy Greek mythology, so this poem caught my eye.  Although Lord Byron presented the purpose behind the crime and punishment, the poem lacked a variety of techniques.  Byron did use symbolization of Zeus. Similes and metaphors could define the way Prometheus felt after the punishment as well as Zeus’ feeling about Prometheus and the crime.  Byron described what Prometheus gained from helping mankind, yet he did not express what mankind gained from Prometheus.  Little to no visual representation presented itself in the poem; therefore holds as a great disappointment to my taste.  Overall Byron did an admirable job outlining Prometheus’ act of crime in Zeus’ eyes and his consequence. 

The Byronic Hero

By description, a Byronic Hero is an idealized, but flawed young man who is often haunted by their past. The Byronic Hero first appears in Byron's semi-autobiography Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, but is later seen in his poems The Giaour, The Corsair, Lara, and his play Manfred. 

Often, these men show the characteristics of:

• arrogance
• high level of intelligence and perception
• adaptability
• suffering from an unnamed crime
• troubled past
• sophisticated, educated
• introspective
• charismatic
• social and sexual dominance
• bipolar tendencies
• being an exile, outcast, or outlaw
• disrespect of rank
• jaded
• cynical
• self-destructive behavior

The Byronic Hero is merely an extension of Byron himself. When he left England in a flurry of scandal, he became obsessed with self-exile, lo and behold, wrote his characters experiencing similar fates. Exile, being haunted by the past, and essentially being a rebel. Childe Harold's exile was self-imposed, whereas Manfred was physically isolated from society. Although called "heroes", the young men portrayed in these poems have dark attributes not normally associated with true heroes.

Peter Thorslev states, "With regard to his intellectual capacity, self-respect, and hypersensitivity,

the Byronic hero is "larger than life," and "with the loss of his titanic passions, his pride, and his

certainty of self-identity, he loses also his status as [a traditional] hero."

With the loss of his "hero" status, Byron's characters become a sort of antihero; they think themselves too flawed and guilty to be a true hero.

"Antiheroes often crop up in deconstructions of traditionally heroic genres. As the struggling, imperfect protagonist begins to gain more respect and sympathy than the impressive-but-impossible-to-relate-to invincible superhero, "anti" heroes have come to be admired as a perfectly valid type of hero in their own right.

It should also be noted that in one definition of the word, the appeal of an antihero is that he or she is often very literally a hero: Namely; he or she does what we wish we could. But whereas Superman, Wonderwoman, Hercules, and many other conventional heroes do it because they lack the physical limitations we do, an antihero does it because he lacks the moral limitations." - TVTropes on "antiheroes". 

Lord Byron's Biography

The English poet Lord Byron was one of the most important figures of the Romantic Movement; a period when English literature was full of  new styles of writing and themes of love, sex, drugs. Because of his writings, active life, and looks he came to be considered the perfect image of the romantic poet-hero. Lord Byron was born January 22, 1788. His family was noble, his father was Captain "Mad Jack" Byron and his mother was Catherine Gordon. Lord Byron was born with a defect known as clubfoot. Despite the awkward way he walked Lord Byron’s childhood was full of play and adventures. Lord Byron’s name changed throughout his life. He was christened George Gordon Byron in London. “Gordon” was his baptismal name, not a surname. Then his father changed his own name to claim his wife’s estate and took on an additional surname “Gordon”. After the change Lord Byron called himself George Byron Gordon. When some time passed Byron’s mother-in-law has died, and in order for Byron to inherit half of her estate he had to change his name again. When he changed his name he signed himself Noel Byron because his mother-in-law’s name was Judith Noel.

            Lord Byron was a celebrity so he traveled the world and visited numerous countries. He had a lot of debts; his mother called it “reckless disregard for money." From 1809 to 1811 Byron went on a Grand Tour to get noticed. He had to avoid most of Europe because of the Napoleonic Wars and instead turned to the Mediterranean. He also traveled to Spain and then Albania.

            George Byron was a famous persona and that is why he had attracted a lot of young women. He had a great handsome physical appearance and that was one of the big factors that made his so attractive for females. Being a celebrity meant having easy asses to almost everything that anyone can desire. Lord Byron had a lot of affairs. He had a rather open affair with Lady Caroline Lamb while she was married, this shocked the British public. Seeing that the public was not happy Byron broke up the relationship with Lady Caroline and swiftly moved on to Jane Elizabeth Scott, nicknamed “Lady Oxford.” Afterwards Lord Byron had more affairs which were complicated.

            Lord Byron has written many works but his longest was Don Juan. He also wrote all these works that are listed below and more:

• Hours of Idleness (1807)
  
  
• English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)
  
  
• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos I & II (1812)
  
  
• The Giaour (1813)
  
  
• The Bride of Abydos (1813)
  
  
• The Corsair (1814)
  
  
• Lara, A Tale (1814)
  
  
• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
  
  
• Don Juan (1819–1824; incomplete on Byron's death in 1824)
  
  
• Marino Faliero (1820)
  
  
• Cain (1821)
  
  
• The Deformed Transformed (1822)

Lord Byron's Biography

Prose Poem; To See With Eyes Unclouded

In the dark of night I can remember clearly. Black inked Latin scrawled on parchment stained with the tears of frustration, the blood of innovation. Bound leather spines keeping pages - etched with runes and the words of science - intact, holding information close to its nurtured core.
These secrets read by alchemists alone to gather the chemical components of Truth itself, which leads outward, far beyond the mind's limited capabilities to a Gate that stands between the brink of knowledge and disaster.
My eyes wander by light of burning wick, an earthly glow settling upon the walls that enslave my effortless abandon to these absorbing texts. Alone in the room where distractions fall flat, I study the tedious and complex jargon of array and symbol. It all forms a single, linear equation that boils down to a single, linear subject: "In order to obtain, something of equal value must be lost."
Beyond the glasses of my vision, these words have their own lifeforce, the ink throbbing like a person's beating heart. Solely, they hold the Pandora's Box that man is forbidden to open; in doing so, it only drives humans closer to the false throne of Heaven by masquerading as gods on earth. We - alchemists - believe that everything is connected.
Life, Death, and Truth.
I lay the hawk's feather quill in the ink, wetting the tip with ebony liquid thick as blood. I understood all of this information, - the diagrams and words and philosophical concepts. Perhaps because I was heading toward the winter of my life, I felt the need to dabble in this art form I had claimed as my last sane, earthly possession. Unbeknownst to my family - wife and sons - I didn't belong here. The very same innovating alchemy that helped so many has sunken its teeth into my flesh, letting its devil magic breed within my body. This shell of man that so lacked the ability to degenerate as time wore on become my prison as I watched all those around me age, and my youth clung to me like little black hands reaching from an endless abyss.
But beyond that darkness is Truth.
Often times I wonder, when the spade hand of the clock moves across its expressionless face to chime the hour, if my first mistake was worth it so many years ago.
Alchemy.
An entire civilization brought to its knees by force of avarice. And I stood there, clasping the flask that led to its destruction, horror icing my life's blood over and dilating golden eyes. This was my punishment for trying to dethrone our so-called Creator. All I had known was wiped away in a single night, and yet the guilt and remorse has never left my consciousness.
Come morn, I leave behind the home I built. Leaving this world of fact and arrays behind, this family I have grown to love.
Sliding my coat around my shoulders, single suitcase in hand, I look behind as the doorway to undetermined freedom opens, - and there I see my children, lost, scared, and confused, wondering why their mother looks so distraught and I, so distant and foreboding.
I depart without a single word.