Byron and Nature:

To Byron Nature is a great metaphor which has helped him to interpret many of his ideas and feelings. His emotion has been strengthened in association with the phenomena of Nature. It has provided him with a ground on which he has presented his views and ideas of life.

Nature in Romanticism:

Nature came to be adored by the Romantic poets of England, and Byron was no exception. Byron's love of Nature was intense and his attitude towards nature was a little different from Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats. Wordsworth and Shelley spiritualized and intellectualized Nature. Wordsworth finds the healing power in nature involves a theory to explain the mysteries of nature. With Byron we have nothing of that type. Byron’s love of nature is of its own kind and stands apart from other romantic poets.

Lacking the intensity of Wordsworth, the subtlety of Coleridge, the receptivity of Keats, the arial fire of Shelley, Byron possessed a breath and vigor of imagination beyond that of any contemporary. Nowhere is this more agreeably illustrated than in his love of nature In this love he is at one with all his own particular way, there is no meditative musing, little sense of mystery, but a very lively sense of wonder and delight in the energizing glories of nature.

Byron's Treatment of Nature:

The first point to be noticed in Byron's attitude towards nature is that it is free from theory or ulterior motive. In this connection we may say that while Wordsworth sought vision or moral interpretation, Byron took nature as he found it, and appreciated much that Wordsworth missed. His poetry of Nature is instructive and immediate, free from theory or ulterior intention.

Byron went to nature to seek refuge from human society. Byron loved solitude and this he could find only in Nature. Moor says, "Byron seeks communion with Nature in order to escape from man; high mountains become 'a feeling' to him when the hum of human cities is a torture," Wordsworth hears in Nature the music of sad humanity; Byron hears no music of humanity in Nature. For him Nature is a refuge, a place of shelter, where he can hide himself from the weariness, the fever and fret of the world. Byron's attitude towards nature was not of a country man but of a town man. He appreciated the beauties of nature from the stand point of a man who was disgusted of the humdrum life of critics.

Nature is intimately related to Byron's feelings, and he colors nature according to his mental and physical state. There is the subjective approach of the poet to nature. He did not find the `healing balm' that Wordsworth found in nature, but still his feelings well formed the basis of communion with the objects of nature.

Byron being no philosopher and moralist takes delight in giving fine descriptions of nature. His descriptions are far superior to Wordsworth, though inferior to Tennyson in the point of accuracy and precision, Byron describes Nature in broad outlines and fuses his feelings with the object of nature. He does not analyse the object minutely.

Byron sees Nature both in its calm and stormy aspects Wordsworth was drawn only by the silence that is in the starry sky but Byron presented nature both in its tranquil and stormy aspects.

Lord Byron was able to face the cruel and inhuman aspects of nature as most of the Romantics could not. With Byron there is no shuddering about the presentation of the sinister B side of nature. The helplessness of man before nature was a subject from which the Romantics shrank, but Byron saw it and spoke sincerely about it.

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