Lord Byron

Does a poet's influence in life solely reflect on his or her poetry and later works to come? Many influences in a poet's life are associated to the era that he or she was raised in. In the Romantic Era, Lord Byron applied his influences of different themes and images to his work as they stood out in his life.

Lord Byron uses the theme of life and death frequently in many of his poems to show the importance of these themes in the Romantic Era. The meaning of life in Byron's work is based on how he views his own life, and depicts it as light. The theme of life is shown when he writes about the sun and expresses "The bright sun was extinguish'd" (BYRON 107). In this particular poem, he talks about the sun as it reflects life because as the light dies out, so does everything around it, meaning that light is essential for life. In the Romantic Era, the importance of life was everything to the romantics, and so they strived to live a successful, meaningful life before disease or illness took over. Opposite to the theme of life, is the theme of death, which was also important to the people of this time. Lord Byron's poetry often reflected the theme of death, as in his time many of his lovers passed before he believed they were supposed to. The theme of death is represented by the image of darkness that is seen when he writes "Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-- A lump of death" ("DARK", 21). Byron's view on life at this time was very bitter, and the way he described it, it was based on his hardships in life, such as the death of one of his lover's. The themes of life and death are very significant in Byron's poetry as it was mainly influenced by his life growing up in the era and his hardships during his time.

Just as the theme of life and death is developed through light and darkness, the author develops the theme of nature, which is used to inform the reader of a sense of beauty, as it was a major theme in the era. Byron shows us that many things can represent nature, but he uses it to represent life. The way that the author demonstrates this is when he writes "... and the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space, rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth" (DARK 2-3). In this piece, the stars and space are introduced as images, which means that if the stars burn out there will be no life left in the world. The theme of nature is also used to represent the beauty of a woman. The readers can see how Byron demonstrates his view on beauty when he wrote, "She walks in beauty, like the night" (BYRON 21). The author uses nature in his poems because it has influenced him, and he relates his influences on nature to his many lovers. Another method the author uses the theme of nature is when he relates it to his thoughts about love and death. His thoughts on love and death are depicted when he says,

"The flowers in ripened bloom unmatched, must fall the earliest prey; though by no hand untimely snatched, the leaves must drop away: And yet it were a greater grief to watch it withering, leaf by leaf, then see it plucked today; Since earthly eye but ill can bear to trace the change to foul from fair."

(BYRON