Byron as a Revolutionary Poet:

Though Byron was not as studious as Shelley, his attitude towards life was very profound and convincing. He was never happy with the going on customs of the society. He wanted to bring about a revolutionary change in the society. This longing for regeneration makes him a great revolutionary poet and lover of man. Byron was one of the proudest revolutionary poets and the poets of freedom and liberty that England has ever produced. He was a born rebel and the fire of liberty and hatred for tyranny burnt furiously in his veins. "Art for Art's Sake", says Courthope, was abhorrent to his genius. He was the Avtar of the revolutionary movement, where every thought was prompted by revolt against the moral postulates of society.

Byron had been from his childhood days a great fighter and he stood vigorously against all forms of tyrannies and oppression. "From childhood he had been a fighter," says Lafcadio Hearn, "and he was not in the least afraid to fight society."

Lord Byron as a Revolutionary Poet and a Poet of Freedom

Byron was the great advocate of out-cast and down trodden people, and always stood for the difference of liberty and freedom. In whatever shape and in whatever place he found oppression and tyranny, he considered it his religious duty to strike boldly at them with all the vigor of a grand rebel.

Byron as a Poet of Freedom:

He stood for personal liberty and the liberty of nations. His views were determined by a powerful and positive believe in the work of individual man. He fought for the cause of liberty and went to Greece to support the Greeks in their struggle against tyranny.

It is better to compare Shelley and Byron. Shelley thought of the future and was inspired by an ideal future. Byron attacked tyrants wherever they existed and pleaded the cause of oppressed humanity. He wished to stir men to revolt to make them rid of their monarchs, and made the world free for free persons. Byron accused his own countrymen of arraying their strength in the side of tyranny and stated that freedom could be possible when the powerful obstacles, thrones and courts were removed.

Like other humanitarian Byron was affected by the misery of the people in France, all over Europe. He had profound compassion for the oppressed people. Byron was a true follower of the principles of the French Revolution. He remained more than other Romantics a true follower of the principles of the Revolution. "Much more than Wordsworth and Coleridge, who after their first enthusiasm for the Revolution surrendered to caution and skepticism, more even than Keats, whose love of liberty was hardly developed to its full range, Byron wished to be free and wished the other men must be free too."

Byron was equally revolutionary in his attitude towards the evils and vices of his age. He was a social revolutionary and ruthlessly exposed and attacked, as in "Don Juan", the philistinism of the upper English-class, the aristocracy and the monarchy. He exposed the hypocrisy, the senseless cruelty, the snobbery, the fraud, the cant and the indolence of the upper classes in society.

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