Lord Byron: The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics)

The text is nice enough but I guess you get what you pay for and there is no way the books ultra cheep constructions gets you through its 1120 pages... just like the other two Oxford World Press books I ordered with this one. Really, $0.08 more a book to put a sturdy cover on it please?!?!?

All passion, intensity and fire, Byron cuts a swathe through the Regency era's lights, literature and ladies. He does so in a style that is the most beautiful and high prose you will ever read; magnificent curving arcs of words that could have come straight from the proud mouth of an archangel (or Lucifer himself). Of course, he occasionally descends into petty back-stabbing, misogyny and generally seems to be a bit of a spoilt child with too much time on his hands, but you can forgive him that just for Childe Harold's Pilgrimage alone.

This book claims to contain most of Lord Byron's major works and it certainly is a full volume, weighing in at over 1000 pages in paperback format. The larger works include the above-mentioned Pilgrimage and Don Juan. These take up at least 700 pages themselves. The remaining space is occupied by Manfred - a rather Nietzschean work about a magician; the Giaour - a tale of unrepentant love and loss; Mazeppa - a story of a man whose fortunes fall and rise dramatically; Beppo - a Venetian affaire de cour; Cain - an intense retelling of the biblical tale with Manichean overtones, and assorted shorter poems. There are also fifty pages of assorted correspondence with various individuals. The book comes equipped with a very short introduction (for a book of 1000 pages), a chronology of Byron's life, an index and end notes. There is very little in the way of explanation of why pieces are included and the end notes are mostly helpful but often explain the obvious while leaving the obscure, obscure. If you like books that contain no analysis, this is for you, but if you want things explained you will do better with something else.

Personally, I preferred the intensity and vision of Childe Harold, Cain and the Giaour to the more sarcastic and occasionally contrived style of Don Juan. Byron is at his best describing beauty - be it nature, art or woman. And much, if not all, of what he writes about is related to the fairer sex. You should write what you know about, they say, and Byron certainly knew women - in both the intellectual and biblical sense. His love affairs raged across all of Europe and brought him condemnation from his peers - particularly his dalliance with his half-sister. His books are full of the worship of the beauty of women and he objectifies them in a way that is entirely politically incorrect in our day and age and likely was then as well. If you can get past the fact that he seems like a teenage boy in rut most of the time, his descriptive powers, characterization, wit, sheer beauty and nobility of expression are sure to please.

Just to let anyone know, if you are looking for romantic poetry I would say at least half of this is not romantic. Just because Byron was a poet of the Romantic Period does not mean it's about love. He was very clever and had outstanding lyrical ballads (some of which, yes, are about women and love) but also broody - Don Juan and Childe Harold are primarily social commentary on world politics. Overall I enjoyed his work for its wit in comparison with Wordsworth's poetry.

Byron was the god of his age. He was worshipped throughout Europe .Today that glory has largely faded and his place in the pantheon of literary greats is somewhat diminished. With Byron there too is the question of the sensational personal life and the heroic role he adopted for himself as revolutionary liberator in Greece's war of independence. As for the poetry I doubt that too many read ' Childe Harold ' with the kind of hunger and enthusiasm it was read in Byron's time. But Byron is an incredible lyricist and there is great poetry in his canon. ' He is a figure of great passion and power, the arch- romantic hero including the demonish mysterious side. For me the total works of Byron are not to be chewed and digested but to be skimmed and tasted. There is much beauty in them.
'She walks in beauty like the night / of cloudless climes and starry skies/ And all that's best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes: / Thu mellowed to that tender light/ Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

Lord Byron was perhaps the most dazzling and influential figure of the Romantic movement. He was certainly the most colorful, controversial, and celebrated poet of his time. His poetic style is controlled, yet the sentiments expressed are passionate. He can be sad and despairing in one stanza, then ecstatically happy in the next, and it is these impulsive mood swings which made him no less contradictory in his beliefs and actions. He wrote some wonderful lyrical poems, but my favorite are his long poems, like "Don Juan." He is and was a captivating personality and a brilliant poet.

David Rehak
author of "Poems From My Bleeding Heart"