2024-03-10 01:12:04
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The reputation of geniuses, or celebrities, is divided around them. In life and after. The controversy increases if the person concerned is causing resentment in his private life. One of the most notable of these was Lord Byron.
In 1814, at the height of his fame, the poet, libertarian and freedom fighter Lord Byron had his head examined. Not by an ordinary doctor, but by the German phrenologist Johann Spurzheim. who, after making a detailed and undoubtedly entertaining study of Byron’s skull, declared the brain to be "extremely contradictory", and said it was an organ in which "good and evil are in perpetual war".
Two centuries after Byron’s death. The division is as clear as ever. His defenders point to his intelligence, poetic genius, and heroic efforts in defense of Greek freedom, and not for nothing. The word &”Byronic&” has entered the vocabulary. At the same time, his critics point out that he was a misogynist, an exaggerated poet whose output, or his once lauded work, was exaggerated and hollow, except for a few song lyrics. For example, the anti-Byron camp often notes that he did not even succeed in saving himself. He died of fever at the age of thirty-six.
Andrew Stauffer comes closer to Byron in a new biography based on 11 letters he wrote during his short life, focusing on the extreme contradictions in his composition. Lady Caroline Lamb said of him: “He is mad and evil, and dangerous to know, but he was also wonderful company.” What is the point of this companionship, or the point of fighting for freedom, or even dying for it, if the Lord destroyed the lives of all these people without any moral or human deterrent?
We find many examples of this type in European literature. Arabic literature is not devoid of them. Perhaps the most famous of them is Abu Nawas, whom some Arab countries ban from teaching in their curricula, regardless of the non-degenerate poetry in his works. Other countries overcome this obstacle on the pretext that poets represent their stages.
As far as I am concerned, as a reader of poetry, every human being in this world can live a happy life without dirtying the soul with what Abu Nawas did to poetry, or what Byron brought down to any bottomless well of evil. Yet he remains “catnip” for biographers, and his contradictions and eccentricities make him a consistently fascinating subject. Even if attitudes towards his adventures and poetry shift from leniency to harsher criticism, there is always a new angle to be taken towards the man nicknamed "The Manager" by his wife, Annabella, and his half-sister Augusta, with whom he had an indecent association that led to his expulsion from Britain in 1816. .
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#Wells #evil