The Napoleonic Wars, had kept the English away from the European continent for nearly two decades principally young men on their “Grand Tours” – a “rite of passage”, particularly for the wealthy and aristocratic. That is how Lady Caroline Lamb described her lover George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron and one of the greatest Romantic poets in English literature. (* ottava rima – a form of poetry consisting of stanzas of eight lines of ten or eleven syllables, rhyming abababcc.) However, his depiction of his travels through the country, provides a fascinating insight into the ways that the British saw Italy and also the ways that the literature of both countries intertwined. Of course, Byron’s was a poetic, idealised image of Italy. His relationship with Italy, where he spent the last eight years of his life and its influence on him would change the way the English-speaking world saw the country. His greatest poem, Don Juan, was begun in Venice and can be said to be fully Venetian in inspiration and atmosphere even if it does not mention the city. For it was in Venice that he discovered the potentialities of the Italian form of “ ottava rima” *, which gave him a way forward for his own poetry. However, Byron also composed one of the wittiest and most amusing works ever written on Venetian life, with his social satire, “ Beppo”. Venice, the fabric of which was in sad decline during Byron’s stay, was the subject of a number of serious poems, such as “ Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” and the “ Ode to Venice” and its history provided the theme for two major dramas.
More importantly, these three years were a turning point in his creative career.
Lord Byron lived in Venice for three years, from 1816 to 1819 and has become one of the legends of the city, with his palace accommodation on the Grand Canal, his great swimming feats and his notorious love-life. Byron in Italy As famous for his notorious private life as for his work, the post describes his eventful life including his Venetian stay.
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