Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)
At a glance:
- Author: Lord George Gordon Byron
- Type of Work: Poetry
- Type of Plot: Picaresque
- Time of Work: 1809-1818
- Genres: Poetry, Picaresque fiction, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Europe or Europeans, Autobiography, Poetry or poets, Antiheroes, Heroes or heroism, Romanticism, Middle Ages, Rome
- Locales: Spain, Italy, Greece, Belgium
Places Discussed
*Spain. In canto 1, Childe Harold departs Albion, or England, and crosses the Bay of Biscay to Portugal and Spain, which has become the battleground for “Gaul’s,” or France’s, “unsparing lord” (Napoleon). Although Napoleon is dramatized as a conqueror justly condemned for his ruthlessness, he also represents a new force for freedom sweeping away Europe’s monarchies and rejuvenating its people. Harold himself is seeking precisely this kind of renewal. With Napoleon’s defeat “Britannia,” or England, “sickens,” Byron exclaims. He exhorts:...
[The entire page is 1063 words long]
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