Friday, June 4, 2010
George Gordon, Lord Byron On This Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year (p390-391)
I think that this poem places great emphasis, and maybe even a warning, of how the reader should live their life each day. Though I find quite odd how he decides to analyze his life at the age of thirty-six, it kind of makes since in a way. I guess it is never too early or too late to look back on one’s life and determine what has been accomplished. One thing the writer put a lot of emphasis on was love and compassion. Immediately at the beginning he makes it known that he does not have a companion by his side (lines 5-8). This first impression is that the writer has greatly desired a love in his life. It seems that this is how he has decided whether or not he is in fact a failure or a success in life. Many people fear dying alone, and I think that this is how he feels. He is even envious of those who have found love. (lines 13-15). I think that the “chain” he speaks of wearing is one of loneliness, or maybe failure. I think he defines love as being happiness; if one lives a life absent in love then they are empty. After realizing that he has failed in the area of love, he feels the only thing left for him to do, maybe the only thing that can save his dignity, is to die as an honorable death as a soldier. I think that he believes that since he has no lover to speak well of him after he departs from earth, that he could at least have his fellow soldiers to speak highly of him. Overall, he finds himself dissatisfied with his life. However, I think that he took a limited view on his life; he failed to analyze any of his other accomplishments of life. But I also know that, no one can determine whether or not some one was successful in life; that can only be determined by how that individual perceives it.
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Trenae,
ReplyDeleteYou make some good observations about Byron's poem, and I like the way you focus on the poet's reflections on the importance of love. I do wish you had incorporated some information from the podcast or the biographical comments on Byron, though. It is important not just what the poem says, but who says it. Byron by this point in his life had had hundreds of not thousands of lovers, a spectacular failure of a marriage, and both fame and notoriety, all by the time he was 36. He writes with that history in mind, and expects that his audience would know about it, too. That history makes his poem both more significant and more ironic!
For us, it seems as though 36 is too young to reflect about your life, but he was in a battlefield and I'm sure it reminded him of his immortality. Being unsuccessful at love, no matter the age, can be considered a death. What good is life without someone to share it with? Apparently, to Lord Byron, it is not worth living any longer.
ReplyDeleteI do find it strange that he decides to reminisce on his life at the age of thirty six. However being young myself and having gone through a lot like Lord Byron, it is understandable that he is reflecting in comparison to himself and what he feels should have been accomplished at this time in his life.
ReplyDeleteByron died less than 4 months after this poem was written.
ReplyDelete