Autobiographical Elements in Byron's Poetry:

Byron is pre-eminently the most vital reactionary poet of his age. He is not only sensitive but also sensible. He is dissatisfied with the current social order. So he revolts against the social, political and religious injustice and hypocrisy. The follies and frailties of the society have become a sort of object whom he pricks with the sharp weapon of his satirical disposition. He has experienced his time and life as his hero Don Juan does. Thus his autobiographical elements come abundantly in his poem Don Juan.

Byron concentrates in himself and reflects in all his writings, the disappointed aspirations, the failure, the sorrow of his time. Others had felt it before. Shakespeare knew it and gave it utterance in the soliloquies of Hamlet. Rousseau had expressed it in his Confessions, but in Byron it finds its fullest expression.

The autobiographical or the personal expression of life is present in many of the poems of Byron. He gives expression to his likings and disliking’s his hatred of slavery and his opposition to tyranny, his love of women and his love for the beauties of nature in several of his poems. He himself becomes the hero of his poems.

Byron represents himself again and, again, and his poetry is confessional in tone. He was himself the beginning, the middle and the end of all his own poetry, the hero of every tale, the chief object in every landscape Childe Harold, Lara, Manfred and a crowd of other characters, were universally considered mere incognitos of Byron; and there is every reason to believe that he meant them to be so considered. Self-conscious Vanity produced in him an anti-social shyness and inclined him to solitary meditation, consciousness of the possession of high powers made him passionately desirous of active fame. This conflict in his mind between these two contrary forces resulted in the forms of morbid self -expression.

The next question that comes before us is whether what Byron expresses of himself is a sincere expression or a mere hypocritical pose. Many critics condemned his lyrics and personal poems because of their hypocritical tone. The charge of insincerity is brought against Byron. But Cazamian refutes the charge by asserting that it would be incorrect to say that "Byron's existence was one continual pose." A man who has put himself so much in his works and is ever ready to discuss his inner feelings before the world can hardly be insincere. It is rather Byron's fundamental sincerity that accounts for his greatness. In this connection we close with the well-judged opinion of Symons who says, "He is fundamentally sincere which is the root of greatness who has a firm hold on himself and on the world; he speaks to humanity in its own voice, heightened to a pitch which carries across Europe. No poet had ever seemed to speak to men so directly, and it was through this directness on his vision of the world, and of his speech about it that he became a poet, that he made a thing of poetry."

In estimation, it is obvious that Byron has reflected many of his views in Don Juan. But his observation has been generalized in many ways. He has embraced the universal self through the personal. He has successfully overcome the barrier of self-confinement and contained multitudes.