Byronic hero

[1] Historian and critic Lord Macaulay described the character as "a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow, and misery in his heart, a scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection".

[4] Byron would later attempt such a turn in his own life when he joined the Greek War of Independence, with fatal results,[5] though recent studies show him acting with greater political acumen and less idealism than previously thought.

[6] The actual circumstances of his death from disease in Greece were unglamorous in the extreme, but back in England these details were ignored in the many works promoting his myth.

[9][10] For example, in Byron's early poem "When I Roved a Young Highlander" (1808), we see a reflection of Byron's youthful Scottish connection, but also find these lines: As the last of my race, I must wither alone, And delight but in days, I have witness'd before:[11] These lines echo William Wordsworth's treatment of James Macpherson's Ossian in "Glen-Almain" (1807): That Ossian, last of all his race!

For example, Byron described Conrad, the pirate hero of his The Corsair (1814), as follows: That man of loneliness and mystery, Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh— (I, VIII)

andHe knew himself a villain—but he deem'd The rest no better than the thing he seem'd; And scorn'd the best as hypocrites who hid Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.

[19] For professor David Michael Jones, the Byronic Hero becomes an expression of masculinity that "is changed, repressed, and reformatted through the long nineteenth century".

In particular, Alexander Pushkin's famous character Eugene Onegin echoes many of the attributes seen in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, such as solitary brooding and disrespect for traditional privilege.

[27] The Byronic hero is also featured in many contemporary novels, and has played a role in modern literature as the precursor to a popular form of antihero.

Erik, the Phantom from Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera (1909–1910) is a well-known example from the first half of the twentieth century,[28] while Ian Fleming's James Bond (if not his cinematic incarnations) shows all the earmarks in the second half: "Lonely, melancholy, of fine natural physique, which has become in some way ravaged ... dark and brooding in expression, of a cold and cynical veneer, above all enigmatic, in possession of a sinister secret.

[31] The undisputed villain of the original Star Wars trilogy achieves some sense of redemption when audiences get insight of the manipulation and mind control he became the victim of, which inevitably led him to become the infamous Darth Vader.