Lord Byron the Romantic Poet and his literary legacy

Romanticism is an influential literary movement originated in the context of the first industrial revolution and French Revolution in the late 18th century. It has promogulated ideas such as a benevolent Nature and a transcendental self, imagination and sublime, gusto and melancholy. One of its central figures, the English poet Lord Byron, continues to stand out in human history for his passionate and dramatic life, no longer belonging to him alone when he exclaimed, “I awoke one morning and found myself famous” upon the publication of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage in 1812. The good-looking poet is regarded as the first celebrity figure in Britain and Europe, whose infectious charm was conveyed and amplified through a rhythmic and witty body of work characterized by exotic travels, a rebellious spirit, and dark heroism. Staying true to his “fiery dust”, the older Byron offended some of his contemporary readers with blatant portraits of social hypocrisy. The last page of his  controversial life took place in Greece, to which he pledged his spiritual allegiance and even mobilized financial means for its independence.

Apart from an oeuvre that has undergone the test of time, the extensive social connections and unprecedented cultural influence that Byron made afford his researchers a good view of the early industrialised world energized by political idealism and greater literacy among the public.

In the past, I worked on Byron’s literary legacy, with one project on its rhetorical influence in the works of Virginia Woolf and another related to T. S. Eliot’s notion of impersonality. These studies acknowledge and clarify the strong Romantic-modernist connection that is more complex than the claimed antagonism. Recently, I become interested in the contemporary significance of Byronic heroism, in view of the trend of hero revival in our popular culture. For instance, the aristocratic, struggling-with-trauma Batman figure and its many screen adaptations confirm the lasting presence of the “Byronic hero” archetype in our time.   

On the side, for my rootedness in this city, I conduct research on Hong Kong literature in English, a field having the deposit of a colonial body of work including Han Suyin’s A Many-Splendoured Thing and Richard Mason’s The World of Suzie Wong and, quite excitingly, growing in the post-Handover years with more acclaimed works that reflect socio-linguistic hybridity, a cosmopolitan mindset, postcolonial consciousness, and diasporic sentiment by Hong Kongers, such as Eric Yip’s “Fricatives”. My most recent presentation contemplated the ideological gap between original English works and translated works in the field.