Byron and Spain

Abstract

Lord Byron’s poetry is a mixture of imagination and romantic fantasy, overwhelming passion and impressionistic realism, and in his poetic vision of Spain, these characteristics stand out. There are three of Byron’s poems in which Spain appears, in some aspect or another, as an important theme: Childe Harold Canto I, Don Juan Canto I and part of II, and The Age of Bronze. In essence these constitute, respectively, a poetic narrative of Byron’s trip from Lisbon to Andalusia at the beginning of the Peninsular War; a humoristic fantasy of the social morals and customs of Spain during the eighteenth century; and a severe political criticism in support of the liberty of the Spaniards during the reign of Ferdinand VII (1822).