Lord Byron: Poems Selected by Paul Muldoon

by Lord Byron, Paul Muldoon (Editor)

In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our literature.

George Gordon was born in London in 1788, of Scottish, French and English extraction. He succeeded to a baronetcy in 1798, and as Lord Byron he was soon to become the most famous poet of his age - with the publication of Childe Harold, in 1812 - as well as one of its most notorious characters. His career spanned a momentous period in European history, in which Byron himself was deeply involved. He left England in 1816, and died in Missolonghi, Greece (where he had gone to join the forces struggling for Greek independence) in 1824.

Genres: Poetry, Classics

133 pages, Paperback

Published April 5, 2007

About the author

George Gordon Byron (invariably known as Lord Byron), later Noel, 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale FRS was a British poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Amongst Byron's best-known works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty, When We Two Parted, and So, we'll go no more a roving, in addition to the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential, both in the English-speaking world and beyond.

Byron's notabilty rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured upper-class living, numerous love affairs, debts, and separation. He was notably described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". Byron served as a regional leader of Italy's revolutionary organization, the Carbonari, in its struggle against Austria. He later travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died from a fever contracted while in Messolonghi in Greece.

Reviews

[Not Well Read · Rating 4 out of 5]

“What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
Is much more common where the climate’s sultry.”

I realise now that I have, for a long time, misunderstood the term ‘Byronesque’ – I went into his poetry looking for deep romance and melodramatic angst, and in its supposed place found a whole lot of satire and deconstructions of poetic tradition. (Of course, the aforementioned term really refers to Byron’s temperament as a person, and not to his work, as the introduction to my edition of this work helpfully points out.)

At any rate, I found myself thoroughly amused by the humour and sarcasm of much of the verse, and also found that I really love one of the more serious poems (‘So we’ll go no more a-roving’) and was moved by some of the others (‘The spell is broke, the charm is flown’). His work has aged very well over the last 200 years, and, although largely famous for his life rather than his work alone, Byron lives up to his reputation.

However, I did feel I could have done with some explanatory notes in my edition – being a classicist, I would understand those references (though there were not as many as I expected – he is rather light on them compared to Shelley), but some of the more topical and contemporary references he made, especially to other poets, were a little cryptic to me. Perhaps I need to read around more, but I will also be on the look-out for an edition with slightly more guidance in the future. I enjoyed the selected parts, but I expect Don Juan in particular is more successful as a whole poem: I understand that it is actually very long, and therefore quite difficult to cut down to isolated passages that work on their own. All in all, the poems selected by Paul Muldoon provide a great taster to Byron’s work, but I expect I will have to look deeper if I wish to understand him more fully.

[Carlton · Rating 3 out of 5]

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink
Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think;
‘Tis strange, the shortest letter which man uses
Instead of speech, may form a lasting link
Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces
Frail man, when paper — even a rag like this,
Survives himself, his tomb, and all that’s his.”


Though he be regarded a controversial figure in contemporary poetic scholarship, I find Byron’s poetry intriguing, and picked this copy up on a whim in a UK thrift store. I started it long ago, but kept it in my back pocket for a rainy day (or, in this case, the hour of 10:30-11:30pm December 31st when I needed to finish my 2024 Reading Challenge).

Some personal favorites were “Destruction of Sennacherib,” “Churchill’s Grave,” and of course “She Walks in Beauty.” I also found “Vision of Judgment” quite interesting, a satire of another work in which Heaven debates whether they should let George III enter or not.

Don Juan, which comprises half the selection, is regarded as his masterpiece — and it certainly flaunts his effortlessly witty and brash style — but reading only excerpts from its many Cantos felt disorienting at best. I’m prepared to swallow Byron’s indiscernible plethora of references (and insults) to his contemporaries, as well as his social biases and his blazing tirades on Grecian independence, but to consume these passages in isolation is like being dropped from a directionless ship into a churning sea (much like Juan in Canto II).

Yet at the end of it all, I am compelled to explore further, longer works, so I can say that the tasting platter accomplished its purpose.

[Jade Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 Note that I am rating this on the basis of the poetry, not on the basis of which poems were chosen for this collection. As it stands: I am endlessly enamoured by Lord Byron’s poetry.

This collection includes a few short works, plus some longer poems (namely “Beppo” and “The Vision of Judgement”) plus some excerpts from Don Juan.

It’s incredible how much of Byron’s personality comes through in his work. I’m currently half way through a complete collection of Keats’ work and can’t help but compare — knowing that this comparison is subjective. While I do enjoy Keats, Byron’s verse possesses a sort of roguish humour that just rockets him into another league in my mind.

I remember reading a lot of Byron’s shorter stuff, and also “Beppo,” in high school and having that classic 14-year-old moment of “why is no one talking about this!?” Good to know that I was right.

New to me was “The Vision of Judgement” which truly made me laugh out loud. It’s a 5/5 poem in my mind.

Also — if I had a dollar for every time Byron accused Wordsworth of being unintelligible? Amazing.

Maybe one day I will read all of Don Juan. Not today.

While I can’t comment on what might be missing from this collection — because I haven’t read Byron’s complete works — I found it a really solid summary of some of his best.

[Helen_t_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose to read this collection of Byron's poems for the "book written by a contemporary of Jane Austen" prompt of the 2022 Jane Austen July challenge on instagram, because, like Jane Austen herself, Byron died a very early death, (he was only 36, she 41) and, because his poems are referred to in Persuasion (the novel I read for the same challenge), when Anne discusses poetry with Captain Benwick.

There's also a letter written by Jane to her sister Cassandra in 1814, in which she mentions having read one of Byron's poems, albeit somewhat dismissively:
"I have read The Corsair, mended my petticoat, and have nothing else to do.”

The poems selected for this collection were curated by the poet Paul Muldoon, and contain a selection of some of his shorter works, as well as extracts from his longer poems. There are some truly beautiful poems such as "She Walks in Beauty", as well as excellent examples of his scathing wit, mockery of the establishment, and some downright rudeness about his contemporary poets especially Wordsworth and Southey.

This collection is a great introduction to Byron's work and really presents a flavour of it.

[Grady Ormsby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lord Byron: Poems Selected by Paul Muldoon is a volume from the series of books from Faber and Faber featuring poems of notable poets selected by contemporary poets. George Gordon (Lord) Byron, the 6th Baron Byron (say, “Baron Byron” ten times real fast.) was a maverick. He was notable for his relationship with the Shelleys, his travels in Italy and Greece, numerous scandals, much controversy, aristocratic excesses, huge debts, the Greek war of Independence, numerous love affairs with both men and women, as well as rumors of a scandalous liaison with his half-sister.
The first quarter of the volume contains some of Byron’s short works including, of course, the almost obligatory “She Walks in Beauty” and one of my favorites “The Destruction of Sennacherib.” One of the longer selections Muldoon chose is “The Vision of Judgment” a satirical poem which portrays a dispute in heaven over the fate of George III's soul. It was written in response to Robert Southey's “A Vision of Judgement “which had imagined the soul of the king triumphantly entering his glory. Byron’s quite damning parody of Southey’s tribute was so lastingly successful that today few remember Southey or his tribute.
“Beppo” is another longer piece that is included. Using the Italian ottava rima meter Byron mixes fictional elements with autobiographical ones in a satiric comparison of English and Italian morals. It is the precursor to Byron's most famous and generally considered best poem, “Don Juan.”
Muldoon includes parts of the “Don Juan” saga. Its structure is deep in the literary tradition but its subject matter is thoroughly contemporary at all levels: social, political, literary and ideological.
Notably absent from the volume are any excerpts from “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.”
Reading Byron is like digging for gold. There is work involved and progress may seem tedious, but the lode contains free-spirited intelligence, interesting social commentary and rich humor.

[Kerri F · Rating 3 out of 5]

.

Angsty

QUOTES

[The Vision of Judgment]
For sometimes he like Cerberus would seem-
"Three gentlemen at once,"...


[Don Juan]
I have seen Napoleon, who seemed quite a Jupiter,
Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a Duke
(No matter which) turn politician stupider