This is as much for me, to help sort out and remember the book, as for anyone. If you feel offended, or whatever, just stop reading, for heaven's sake.
The title is apt. This is the third bio of Byron I've read, so I'm pretty well saturated. Grosskurth is probably the warmest and the most matter-of-fact about Byron. Jekyll and Hyde hadn't been written yet, but LB could have been a model. In either state he had considerable charisma, that mysterious element; in the angel state he was utterly irresistible, to men and to women, really, to everyone. In the, I hesitate to call it, devil state, he was terrifying but the inner unhappiness on display was heart-rending to those who loved him. He was, above all, COMPLICATED. Also a genius, make no mistake. Grosskurth doesn't outright condemn anyone--except perhaps his 'friends' who, cowards, burned his memoirs. They could have put them in a bank vault for, say, 200 years and that would have been acceptable. Nothing shocks us now, does it? And it would help to know more about his sexuality, which I suspect was, as with everything else about him, complicated. Everyone wants clarity around someone's sexual identity and leanings, which strikes me as so much nonsense. It's got to be this or that in too many minds, when obviously, it rarely is.
One thing that stands out in all three biographies is that Byron, considering himself a gentleman, states more than once that he only ever has had consentual relations. Anything else would be distasteful to him. Of course, with a prostitute provided there is the monetary transaction the thing has a consentual appearance but I won't quibble. I suspect in his teens he had an encounter (Lord Grey, renting Newstead Abbey) where he was either raped or almost raped and was shocked and furious and was a determining factor in his sexual relations. My feeling is he mostly stuck with women for sex, men for friendship. As such, I'd say Grosskurth, as do the others, come down firmly on the side of a kind of bi-sexuality of intention, active but that Byron, the older he got, worshipped the innocence and beauty of young boys on the cusp of adolescence and turned to women for sex. Were any of the boys willing to do more than be admired? Who knows? Probably? But consent was the crux of the matter. At Harrow apparently everyone buggered everyone (although I doubt they all indulged, but who knows?) and no doubt Byron knew all about the pleasures and problems.
Then the three women with whom he had longer relations: Augusta his half sister, Annabella his wife, and Teresa Guicoli, the Italian countess. LB was likely more comfortable confining intercourse to women as then he did not have to bother with worshipping them or taking them too seriously. Women were truly problematical for him, I think. Kurth provides balanced portraits of all the women. Did he sleep with Augusta? Well, yes, obviously. Not to excuse it, but they had none of the taboos that seem to fall in place for people who grow up together--they met as young adults and both had endured complicated childhoods and loneliness, and recognised something in one another that felt familiar and safe so I can't be surprised. Annabella was another matter. In some ways she might have been a good partner for him, stabilising, it they had let the sexual side go, lived mostly separately and managed to become and remain friends. But, maybe Annabella was too smart and insightful for him? He really had trouble with being too close, too known. All the women he was drawn to were of the 'difficult' variety (Caroline Lamb being the most famous) --not afraid to make demands and scenes--none of which Byron could easily withstand.
Probably the hardest thing for me was his dislike of 'bluestocking' women (ironic given that his daughter, Ada, was possibly the ultra-bluestocking in her time. As a protegée of Babbage, she helped invent the first algorithm-crunching machine, e.g. computer prototype). His take-for-granted/dismissal of Mary Shelley is also hard to endure.
Anyhow Grosskurth doesn't condemn anyone--she has the sense to look at his family and friends within the context of the customs and experiences of those involved and in the constraints on their lives, so not his mother, not Annabella, not Augusta or Teresa, or Hobhouse or Murray are portrayed negatively. Her thought is that he was impossible to live with perhaps, but also impossible not to love.
Moving on -- I think Byron had to categorise people--he also had trouble being close to anyone who was of a lesser social status as himself--and he made that easier to do by eliminating pretty much all women. Anyone you could have sex with? Or had sex with? He didn't think sex and friendship mixed well, perhaps he kept those two modes of relationship fully separate as a bid for some kind of privacy? A need? This is all speculation on my part, reader. Another interesting thing that has occurred to me given my two-year crush previously, on Wellington -- they both relied on very very intelligent, attractive women (whom they had little desire to bed) as confidantes and advisers.
Re writing -- there is something so refreshingly candid, witty, self-aware -- almost always the angel was writing, but an angel with a 'side'. As his work is very autobiographical, it is also interesting as a window into his state of mind. I'm reading/listening to his poetry so more on that as I go.
I am thrilled overall to have encountered Byron!