The great poet, Oscar Wilde once said “Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.” These words ring true even to this day. Many of our heroes and idols attain inspiration from their every day life, yet their achievements are often oveshadowed by the myth created behind their personas. Therefore, it is natural for the curious listener to question wether what has been heard is truth or glamorization to further bolster their fame. So the question begging to be answered is, Does an individuals life and era truly influence his or her work? Does it justify their status or legend? The reality of these questions tend to be stranger than fiction, for there is always an underlied truth behind the works of even the most famous individual. George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron is certainly a man who lived up to these questions. He was regarded as "one of the greatest English poets and the very prototype literary Romanticism." His temperament was volatile yet always had an air of social civility which intriguied anyone who came across him. Always the charmer, his magnetic personality attracted women and men alike. He looked at life in a light and cheerful manner but was prone to spells of severe depression, hence he was well aware of his paradoxical contradictions for he famously told his friend Lady Blessington "'I am so changeable, being everything by turns and nothing long- I am such a strange melange of good and evil, that it would be difficult to describe me."' His works where intensely personal. Usually filled with autobiograpgical references combined with a larger sense of the worlds situation. Thus, Byron made his internal journey either a reflection or reaction of his lifes' circumstances.
Liberty is a common theme in many of ...
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