Lord Byron

The first cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage appeared in 1812 and made Byron a celebrity in London almost overnight. The poem's restless, aristocratic traveler helped shape the public image of the Byronic hero.

A Byronic hero is proud, charismatic, alienated, morally troubled, and often self-destructive. The type draws heavily on Byron's own poetic figures, especially Childe Harold and later characters such as Manfred.

Byron's Don Juan is a long comic poem that turns the legendary seducer into a young man swept through European society and politics. Byron began publishing it in 1819, and it remained unfinished at his death.

Byron died in 1824 in Missolonghi while supporting the Greek War of Independence. He did not die in battle, but his presence and death made him a symbolic hero for the Greek cause.