Byron, the Martyr

In Byron’s, “Canto The Third”, there is a segment which the text titled, “Byron’s strained idealism. Apostrophe to His Daughter.”  Here there is a noted tone and theme shift.  Byron stops employing natural imagry and begins speaking more plainly.  The speaker begins to make himself into a martyr, into more of a tragic hero in a flawed society.  The speaker also strives to separate himself from society, to stand apart from its corruption as a more pure individual.  “We are not what we have been, and to deem/ we are not what we should be,” (lines 1034-1035).  Society teaches that emotion is, “the tyrant spirit of our thought,” (line 1038).  This repression of basic human emotion stunts human growth.  It is oppressive, and should be glorified where it is condemned.  However, the speaker would take his emotions and treasure them, and “seize, in passing, to beguile/ My breast or that of others, for a while,” (lines 1043-1044).  “I have not loved the world, nor the world me;/ I have not flatter’d its rang breath, nor bow’d/ To it’s idolatries a patient knee,” (lines 1049-1050).  The speaker is above the corrupt values of society, and therefore beyond reproach.  “I stood and stand alone, remember’d or forgot,” (line 1048).  The speaker notes that with age he has grown wiser, and that he knows that fame is nothing.  The speaker’s personal worth does not depend on the judgement of society.  At the end of his “Strained Idealism”, the speaker seeks to further elevate himself above society by portraying himself as the better man.  Though society may condemn him, the speaker, wishes society the best and hopes that it overcomes it’s faults.  He hopes for, “virtues which are merciful,” (1062), that is, virtues that are good in themselves and ensure justice and peace, rather than just a distinction for “good” and “bad” people.  Though he and society never quite got along, the speaker writes, “let us part as fair foes,” (line 1059).

I think that Byron makes several good obervations about society.  Emotions are natural, and it is not healthy to repress them.  One has to have a sense of morality apart from society’s.  At the end of it all, you can’t say that it was okay to do something just because someone else said it was fine.  In this life, you have to live with your actions, and you better than any law or social convention will hold yourself accountable.  Additionally, the “holier-than-thou” attitude the Byron writes of is intolerable, and hypocritical.  However, overall, Byron is morbidly melodramatic as he paints the speaker as a tragic hero.  And every hero needs an enemy.  So society becomes personified as this horrible entity that denies and corrupts human nature.  There is no direct quote for this, it’s just my general impression.  Because of the intended contrast, the more the speaker promotes himself as a hero, the more he also condemns society.