Quotes: Asimov's notes (1972) to Byron's "Don Juan" (1819-24)

 

Asimov’s annotated Don Juan

 

Text by Lord Byron

Notes by Isaac Asimov

 

Doubleday, Hardback, 1972.

4to. [vi]+1153 pp. Dedication by the author [v]. “Byron: A Short Biography” [1-9]. Index to annotations [1139-53]. Illustrated by Milton Glaser. First Edition.

 

Editor’s Note. In bold, reference to the poem; Roman numbers for cantos, Arabic ones for stanzas and lines, e.g. IV.12.8 stands for Canto IV, stanza 12, line 8; D = Dedication. The annotated line (or part of it) is quoted in italics. If the note refers to several lines, only the last is given; the classic Coleridge edition (1903) may be conveniently consulted in such cases. In round brackets at the end, number of the note in question. The notes are occasionally abridged, and typos fixed (e.g. “frame” in No. 21), silently. Editorial additions to the notes are inserted in square brackets and marked with “Ed.”.

 

D.1.1: Bob Southey! You’re a poet – Poet-laureate (4, 5)

Robert Southey (1774–1843) was an English poet whose success far outstripped his talents. His best-known poems today remain The Battle of Blenheim composed in 1798 and The Inchcape Rock written somewhat later. Neither is very important. Byron hated him with a fervor that seemed but to increase with time (the hate was returned) and Don Juan is dedicated to him with savage irony.

The poet laureate is a court official appointed by the British Prime Minister. The poet laureate (“laureate” means decked with laurel and therefore honored, for in ancient Greece it was the custom to grant the winners at the Olympian games wreaths of laurel leaves) was supposed to write odes in honor of the monarch on his birthday and to celebrate other official occasions in similar fashion.

The poet laureate was by no means assuredly the best poet in the nation, for there were many who would be considered ineligible because their political views were unsuitable or their poetry unedifying. And the best poets often did not want a post which they viewed as that of the government’s tame poetic spaniel.

Nevertheless, the post brought in a little money and a great deal of prestige (with the non-poetic public) and, officially at least, the poet laureate might be considered the chief of British poets (hence “representative of all the race”).

Southey was the twelfth official poet laureate, having accepted the post in 1813, five years before this dedication was written. Byron had only contempt for the man and for the post, but that did not mean that he did not chafe at the fact that the public generally, in awe of the post, were consequently impressed by the man.           

 

D.1.3: Although ‘tis true that you’d turn’d out a Tory at (6)

The Tories were the conservative party of the nation (and modern Conservatives in Britain are still often referred to as Torries). They were the spokesmen of the landed gentry, of the established Church, of the Crown. In short, they represent what we would today call the Establishment.

Southey, in his youth, had been caught up (like many other young Englishmen of the time) in the revolutionary fervor that accompanied the French Revolution of 1789. With age, however, Southey became steadily more conservative and eventually became a pillar of the Tories and one of their most dependable spokesmen. In this respect, he was like a number of other literary figures who had been revolutionaries in their youth but who had hardened and yellowed with age and prosperity, so that Southey’s change had “lately been a common case.” Byron, who remained revolutionary and bitterly anti-Establishment to the end of his days, felt self-righteously superior    to those he considered traitors to their youthful ideals, and his contempt for them knew no bounds.   

 

D.3.8: A fall, for lack of moisture a dry, Bob! (12)

“A dry Bob” seems to have been then-current slang for intercourse without ejaculation (“lack of moisture”). The use of the phrase shocked and (of course) titillated the public and was a particularly effective way indicating that Southey went through the motions of writing poetry without producing anything poetic.

 

D. 4.1: And Wordsworth, in a rather long “Excursion” (14)

Although many of Wordsworth’s youthful poems are first-class, he wrote himself out by the time he was forty, and the last half of his long life shows only occasional flashes of power. His long poem The Excursion, published in 1814, shows none of them and was almost entirely pedestrian. Nevertheless, Wordsworth lived to succeed Southey as a poet laureate in 1843, something that would have stirred Byron’s profoundest disgust, had he lived to see it.

 

D.4.6: And may appear so when the dog-star rages (15)

The “dog-star” is Sirius, the brightest star in the sky (so-called because it is in the constellation Canis Major, or Great Dog). It rises close to dawn during the months of July and August and, in ancient times, was thought to radiate a significant quantity of heat, thus making those months particularly hot. This is not so, of course, but the hottest part of summer is still referred to as the “dog days.” Since great heat can induce sunstroke and can, even short of that, make anyone snappish and unreasonable, men were supposed to be more likely to go mad during the dog days. Hence Byron’s comment implies that only madmen would consider Wordsworth’s Excursion to be poetry.

 

D.5.8: Which makes me wish you’d change your lakes for ocean (18)

Byron had traveled all over Europe (and was indeed, at the time he wrote this, living in Venice in permanent exile from his native land). He could not help sneering at the Lake poets for their narrow provincialism as compared with himself.

 

D.7.7: Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe (20-22)

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) was a Scottish poet whose success came with The Lay of the Last Minstrel, published in 1805, which contains the great set of patriotic lines that begins “Breathes there a man with soul so dead…” Byron wrote satirically at Scott’s expense in his youth, but the good-natured Scott returned pleasant words for unkind ones, and in the end they were good friends even though Scott was, and remained, a Tory. Scott was lame from an attack of poliomyelitis in babyhood and this may have helped endear him to the self-consciously clubfooted Byron. Scott was offered the laureateship on the death of Pye but he refused it, something which also counted in his favor as far as Byron was concerned.

Samuel Rogers (1763–1855) was quite a second-rate poet, whose only literary fame came with the publication of The Pleasures of Memory in 1792. The phrase “Not dead, but gone before,” seen on many a tombstone now, is his. He was a kindly gentleman who gave good parties, was financially generous to other poets, and was a friend of Byron’s. He lived long enough to be offered the laureateship on Wordsworth’s death but refused it, and no doubt the shade of Byron approved.

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) was a Scottish poet who wrote patriotic verse (Ye Mariners of England, 1800) and ballads (Lord Ullin’s Daughter, 1804). He was, and remained, a liberal, not only supporting the French Revolution, but also denouncing the partition of Poland and inveighing against Negro slavery. He received a pension from the Crown in 1803, but apparently Byron didn’t mind that. He and Rogers (see note 21) were about the only contemporary British writers never to suffer shafts of Byronic satire.       

 

D.7.8: ‘Gainst you the question with posterity (26)

The result of the trial would not have pleased Byron, alas. None of the poets named in this verse, despite Byron’s approval, were destined to compete with Wordsworth and Coleridge in the eyes of posterity, though Scott at least probably transcends Southey.

 

D.8.5-8: Is not the certain path to future praise (28)

It is obvious that Byron emphatically does not follow his own advice, but then few people do.

 

D.11.8: The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh (34)

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (1769–1822), was Foreign Secretary from 1812 to 1822. In the years following Waterloo, he kept Great Britain on the side of those Continental monarchies who attempted to crush the forces of liberalism in Europe. This made him anathema to the English liberals, and no one was more vivid in execrations against him than Byron was. He was also identified with repressive policies at home.

Byron’s phrase “intellectual eunuch” is double-barreled. He might well be impugning Castlereagh’s intelligence and it is true that Castlereagh was a bad orator and therefore sounded stupid at times. The phrase might refer more literally to a real or fancied hyposexuality, for through his long marriage of thirty-five years, Castlereagh had no child. This second implication is reinforced by Byron’s deliberate use of “its” for “his” in the succeeding verses.

 

D.15.1-5: Eutropius of its many masters (40)

Here again, the matter of the “intellectual eunuch” is brought up, for Castlereagh’s mind is “emasculated to the marrow.” Eutropius was a eunuch, literally, who served as a minister to the East Roman Emperor Arcadius from 395 to 398. His reputation in history was that of a vile and corrupt intriguer and he came to a bad end, being executed in 399. (Castlereagh also came to a bad end, perhaps even more tragic, four years after these words written. Byron could not know that now – though he might hope.)

 

I.1.6: I’ll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan (48)

Don Juan is an “ancient friend” because he was a well-known figure out of Spanish folklore. He first received recognized literary presentation in a drama El Burlador de Sevilla, written in 1630 by the Spanish dramatist Gabriel Téllez (who wrote under the pseudonym Tirso de Molina).

In the original folk tale, Don Juan was the epitome of the licentious man, who aspired (usually successfully) to make love to every woman he met, and who did so with utter disregard for any law. The climax of his story is his liaison with a noblewoman and its consequences. He kills the woman’s father in a duel. The father is buried and an effigy of him is placed over the tomb. Don Juan, seeing that effigy, mockingly invites it to dinner. The stone figure duly arrives at the meal and drags the rake and blasphemer to Hell.

Various versions of this legend had already appeared in Spain and elsewhere by Byron’s time. Moliere had written a play on the theme and Mozart, an opera. Byron, with no compunction whatever, utterly alters the plot in his own version. In fact, all that Byron leaves of the traditional Don Juan, is his name and birthplace; nothing more! Don Juan’s character is utterly changed. From a heartless blasphemer, seducer, and libertine (as the world viewed Byron), he becomes an innocent, far more sinned against than sinning (as Byron viewed himself).

[Mozart’s opera, using the Italian version of the name, Don Giovanni, also altered the title character a great deal, although nowhere near as much as Byron did. Mozart’s Don Juan is creature of heroic defiance and tragic depth, far removed from the usual lecher and blasphemer. Bernard Shaw later made fun of Byron’s character in the “Epistle Dedicatory” to his Man and Superman (1903), but in the play itself he was content to borrow silently Byron’s innovation of Don Juan, not as the pursuer, but as the pursued. Ed.]

 

I.2.1-2: Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe (50, 51, 56)

Edward Vernon (1684–1757) was an English admiral who wore a grogram cloak (one woven of coarse silk) in bad weather and was consequently called “Old Grog”. He was the first to issue rations of rum and water to the crew. Diluted liquor, and then liquor of any kind, came to be known as “grog” in sailor slang.

William Augustus (1721–1765), a son of George II of Great Britain and an uncle of George III, was created Duke of Cumberland in 1726. In 1745 he headed the British forces fighting off the last Stuart attempt to regain the throne. On April 16, 1746, he defeated the Scottish adherents of “Bonnie Prince Charlie” at Culloden, then pursued and crushed the fleeing rebels with sufficient cruelty to wipe out Stuart hopes forever and to earn for himself the nickname “the butcher”.

John Burgoyne (1722–1792) is best remembered (particularly in the United States) for the defeat of his army and his surrender of Saratoga, New York, in 1777. This was the turning point of the American Revolution.

[Burgoyne is also a witty and memorable character from Bernard Shaw’s play The Devil’s Disciple (1896). He was beautifully portrayed by Laurence Olivier in the 1959 movie. Ed.]  

 

I.7.3-4: Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning (88)

The reader will not be long in discovering that while writing these two lines, Byron has his fingers firmly crossed.

 

I.8.1-4: So says the proverb – and I quite agree (90)

The proverb is Quien no ha visto Sevilla, no ha visto maravilla. A free translation, keeping the internal rhyme, would be “To miss Seville is to miss a thrill.”

 

I.9.2-3: Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source (94)

The word hidalgo meaning, literally, “son of something” implied that a person was of honorable descent and could therefore use “Don” before his name. Since parts of Spain had been under the domination of the Moors for seven centuries, and since during that time, the Jews had made up a strong and prosperous minority, in the Moorish portions at least, there had been interbreeding between the native Christian Spaniards and the others. It was a point of honor among the Spanish nobility of later times that no Moors or Jews were to be found in their ancestry.

 

I.9.4: Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain (95)

Before the invading Moors conquered Spain in 711, Spain had for three centuries been under the rule of a Gothic tribe called the Visigoths. To be able to trace one’s ancestry beyond the Moorish era to the Visigoths themselves would, of course, be the last word in Spanish nobility.

 

I.10.1-2: For every branch of every science known (96)

Byron, who valued women for parts other than their brains, detested female intellectuals. This feeling of his was strengthened, broadened, deepened, and intensified by the fact that Lady Byron (nee Annabella Milbanke) with whom he had contracted a brief and disastrous marriage, followed by an even more disastrous (for Byron) separation that led to his permanent exile, was a “learned lady.” There seems no question but that Byron’s picture of Don Juan’s mother is intended as a satire on Lady Byron.  

[It is true enough that Byron detested female intellectuals. He wrote a whole satirical poem, The Blues (1823), dedicated to them. But he could and did appreciate a few women for non-physical characteristics, if not for their brains, certainly for their personalities and common sense. The most notable example is Lady Melbourne with whom Byron maintained fantastically frank correspondence. “I have no very high opinion of your sex,” he wrote to her on 25 September 1812, “but when I do see a woman superior not only to all of her own but to most of ours, I worship her in proportion as I despise the rest”. Ed.]

 

I.14.8: The English always use to govern d—n (103)

In Byron’s time it was customary to leave “damn” unspelled out to avoid trouble with the censor. Obviously, the inclusion of two letters and the necessity of rhyme makes the word unmistakable, but censorship is characteristically concerned with form rather than with reason.

 

I.25.2: And mischief-making monkey from his birth (114)

In the entire epic there is only one event that can be dated and that is the siege of Izmail in Cantos VII and VIII. This took place in 1790 and in Juan was then eighteen, as he might have been, he would have been born in 1772. However, Byron pays no attention to dates at all, and it is enough to know that the time of the poem is pre-Napoleonic but not much so.

 

I.44.1-8: Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index (133)

This sounds unbelievable, but there was indeed such an edition published in Amsterdam in 1701, and it offers a particularly fine example of that odd phenomenon, the mind of the censor.

 

I.47.7: As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions (137)

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430), or St. Augustine, was converted in his early thirties. He led the usual youthful life of a fourth-century pagan of good family (not nearly as bad as the usual youthful life of a nineteenth-century Christian of good family) and described his youth with candor in his later Confessions, perhaps the greatest autobiography of ancient times.

 

I.49.4: As e’er to man’s maturer growth was given (138)

Don Juan now becomes Byron’s idealized version of himself. Byron, who was extremely handsome, went through tortures of dieting to preserve his figure and secretly curled his hair as well. Of course, he had a clubfoot – which Juan does not have.

 

I.51.3: I knew his father well (139)

Here is the “Spanish Gentleman” speaking again. Still, since Don José was so close a picture of Byron as a married man, the poet might be said to have known him well.

 

I.54.5: Him almost man; but she flew in a rage (143)          

Since Don Juan is now Byron’s idealization of himself, Donna Inez takes on some of the characteristics of Byron’s mother; a much ill-used woman who was given to tantrums and rages that were a large factor in making Byron’s childhood hideous.

 

I.56.5: When proud Granada fell (146)

By 1232 the Christian kingdoms of northern Spain had extended their power over almost the whole of the peninsula. Left in Moorish hands was only a small section of southern Spain centered around the city of Granada. This kingdom of Granada maintained itself for two and a half centuries, not capitulating to the combined power of Castile and Aragon till 1492.

 

I.56.6: Boabdil wept (147)

Abu-‘Abdullah (called Boabdil by the Spaniards) was the last King of Granada. When defeated in 1492 and forced to cross over into Africa, he paused on a hill outside Granada to look one last time at the city which had been Moorish for nearly eight centuries. The spot from which he looked back is called “El Último Suspiro del Moro” (The Last Sigh of the Moor), and as he wept, his mother said harshly, “You do well to weep like a woman for what you could not defend like a man.”

 

I.56.7: Some went to Africa, some stay’d in Spain (148)

One of the terms of the surrender of Granada was that Moors who remained in Spain would be accorded freedom of worship. The Christian zeal of the Spanish priesthood in succeeding decades made the promise a mockery. By 1525 the Moors were forced either to convert or to leave. Even the converted Moors remained suspect, however, and were constantly hounded under the suspicion of being secretly Mohammedan and in league with the African states south of the Mediterranean.

Finally, in 1609, they were forced out of Spain and the country lost nearly a million of its most industrious and capable citizens, serving thus its own ruin. By then, however, there had been numerous intermarriages and many Spaniards could find traces of Moorish ancestry – if they looked.

 

I.79.5: Platonic, perfect, “just such love as mine” (156)

“Platonic” love is the ideal love described by Socrates in Plato’s Symposium, spiritual rather than physical, inspired by the loved one’s character and virtue, rather than by mere bodily beauty.

 

I.104.4: As e’er held houri in that heathenish heaven (164)

A houri was a nymph who was imagined by Moslems to exist in Heaven for the delectation of the faithful. Houris were ever-beautiful and ever-willing, yet managed to be ever-virginal as well as (if they desired) ever-fruitful. No mentioned is made of intelligence.

 

I.132.8: Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo (190)

The battle of Waterloo, fought on June 18, 1815, was, in Byron’s time, and for a century after, a kind of military watershed. It was the battle at which Napoleon’s power had been broken once and for all, and the battle at which Great Britain’s military prestige reached its all-time high point. Byron view Waterloo as a defeat, however, for by it the reactionary monarchs of Europe were enabled to turn the clock back and erase the advances toward freedom begun by the French Revolution.

 

I.149.1-3: Did not his countryman, Count Corniani (194)

There was indeed a Count Giambattista Corniani (1742–1813) of this period, but he was a harmless historian of Italian literature and is surely not referred to here. Probably the name is used as a play on cornuto, the Italian word for “cuckold.” The name, Cazzani, two lines before may be a play on the Italian vulgarism cazzo, meaning “penis.”

 

I.150.4: I wonder in what quarter now the moon is (195)

The moon was thought to induce madness at certain times. In fact, the word “lunacy” is from luna, the Latin word for the moon.

 

I.194.1: Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart (205)

This is one of the most famous passages in the poem. Few of those who quote it, in season and out, know it is from Don Juan or even that Byron wrote it.

[Presumably the whole stanza is meant. Ed.]

 

I.205.1: Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope (210)

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) was an English poet, undersized and deformed (but with giant wit and intelligence), who wrote mock-heroic epics such as The Rape of the Lock in 1712. He wrote almost entirely in couplets and was, of all English poets, the only one who may have been Byron’s superior in the savagery of his wit. Byron admired Pope more than any other poet and Byron’s first satire English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809) was a deliberate, and effective, piece of writing in the style of Pope.

 

I.206.1: Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby’s Muse (211)

William Sotheby was a minor literary figure whom Byron disliked. He believed Sotheby to have been the author of an anonymous and unfavorable review condemning Byron’s Prisoner of Chillon. The surest way to worm one’s self into Byron’s disfavor was to criticize his poetry (something in which Byron closely resembles all other literary figures I have ever heard of).

 

I.206.3: Thou shalt not bear false witness like “the Blues” (212)

The “Blues” (short for “bluestockings”) are the learned ladies whom Byron abhors. The one referred to in the next line in very likely Lady Byron.

 

II.26.7: For the sky show’d it would come on to blow (234)

Much of the second canto is taken up with the gruesome details of shipwreck. Byron got many of those details from a book Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea by Sir G. Dalzell, published in 1812. His borrowing extended to even such small details as the fact that ships’ pumps were manufactured by “Mr. Mann of London” (see three stanzas further on). Byron thought it better in such cases to be accurate by borrowing than to be creative at the cost of absurdity. He takes the same attitude in later cantos to in connection with the siege of Izmail.

 

II.105.8: Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did (257, 258)

Leander, the hero of a romance that appears first in Ovid, was native of Abydos, a city on the Asian side of the Hellespont. He was in love with Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite in Sestos, a town on the European side. Leander swam the Hellespont every night to be with Hero, guided by a light she placed in her window. One stormy night the light was blown out; Leander lost his way and was drowned. When his dead body was washed ashore, the grief-stricken Hero plunged into the waters to her own death. For many centuries readers wept over the sad tale.

Like many a person who suffered a physical handicap, Byron over-compensated. He played cricket well, learned to box, fence, and shoot, and was an excellent swimmer. In 1810, while he was touring the east, the frigate Salsette was carrying him to Constantinople. He decided to try to repeat Leander’s feat. On his second try, on May 3, he managed to swim from Sestos to Abydos in one hour and ten minutes. Allowing for the current, he may have swum four miles. Lieutenant William Ekenhead of the frigate swam the course with him. Byron was proud of this feat and managed to mention it frequently in his writings. (A year before, he had swum across the Tagus River at Lisbon, a more difficult feat, but lacking in classical associations.) Byron suggested that Leander could scarcely have been in the mood for love after an hour or more in the cold current. (The same thought occurred to me, quite independently, years ago.)

[The sentence between the two couples of brackets probably refers to a letter Byron wrote to Henry Drury on the very same day of his swimming stunt. Having boasted of it, he observed that the currents make the stunt dangerous, “so much so that I doubt whether Leander’s conjugal affection must not have been a little chilled in his passage to Paradise.” The letter is reprinted abridged in Selected Letters and Journals, ed. Peter Gunn, Penguin [1972], 1984. pp. 53-4; and complete in a collection with the same title edited by Leslie Marchand, John Murray, 1982, pp. 34-8. Six days later, Byron completed a famous poem about the event.]

 

II.137.8: To those related in my grand-dad’s “Narrative” (267)

Byron’s “grand-dad” was John Byron (1723–1786). He was called “Foul-weather Jack” since he encountered more storms in his nautical career than one had a right to expect. In 1741 he was on board one of the ships under the command of Capitan George Anson (1697–1762), who was on a voyage of circumnavigation of the earth. Anson successfully completed his trip, but the ship on which John Byron sailed, the Wager, was wrecked off the shores of Chile. Byron went through a series of horrors but ended in safety on Chilean soil, only to land in a Spanish prison there. He was finally released and returned to England in 1745.

He eventually wrote up the story of his grisly adventures, publishing it in 1768 under an enormously long title usually abbreviated to its second word Narrative. Don Juan’s hardships were indeed comparative to “grand-dad’s” since Byron borrowed liberally from his grandfather’s book. It was John Byron, for instance, who, like Juan, had to eat the forepaw of his own spaniel (see Stanza LXXI of this canto).

In 1764 John Byron led a fleet of his own in a two-year circumnavigation of the world and in 1779 fought on the British side of the naval battles involved in the American Revolution. In the last-mentioned year he ran into one of the worst Atlantic hurricanes on record, as befitted one called “Foul-weather Jack.”

 

II.201.8: Some play the devil, and then write a novel (292)

This is a clear reference to the half-mad Lady Caroline Lamb, who had carried on a frenzied affair with Byron in 1812, one from which the poet had only with the greatest difficulty extricated himself. She pursued him shamelessly thereafter and on May 9, 1816, after Byron had left England, she vengefully published a perfectly terrible novel, Glenarvon, in which she idealized herself and made Byron look considerably worse than he was. The fact that it openly described the details of their affair (she even included the letter Byron had written her breaking it off, with changes introduced to make him look like a cad) made it a sensation and Byron’s enemies were jubilant.

Lady Caroline, misled by the success of Glenarvon, thought she was a writer and over the next seven years published two other novels which easily attained oblivion.

 

 

 

Lord Byron: A Chronology of His Works

NB. As the title indicates, this is a chronology of Byron’s works; the life is reduced to a few key events. The man who emerges from the works is considered a great deal more important than the man as he appeared outwardly to the world. The writings are more important than the doings. All dates are taken from the Coleridge edition of the poetical works (7 vols., 1898–1904) or the Marchand edition of the letters and journals (12 vols., 1972–83). Short poems are given with the dates they were signed with; if only the year is known, the poems are listed in the end of it. For longer poems, dates of beginning, progress and completion are given as accurately as they are known. Places of writing are added when known with certainty. First editions are in blue to distinguish them easily from dates of writing and other entries. Additions to later editions by LB are also marked in blue. For more info on bibliographical matters, see here.

 

1788

·       Jan 22. Born, London.

1790

·       Moves to Aberdeen with his mother. Childhood in Scotland. Attends Aberdeen Grammar School (1794-8).

1791

·       Jan 22. 3^rd birthday.

·       Aug 2. Father John “Mad Jack” Byron dies in France.

1798

·       Jan 22. 10^th birthday.

·       May 21. Uncle William Byron (the Wicked Lord) dies. Becomes 6^th Baron Byron.

1801

·       Apr. Enters Harrow.

1802

·       Nov. “To E----”.

·       n.d. “On the Death of a Young Lady, Cousin to the Author, and very dear to him”

1803

·       Jan 22. 15^th birthday.

·       Feb. “To D----”

·       n.d. “Elegy on Newstead Abbey”, “On Leaving Newstead Abbey”, “Epitaph on a Beloved Friend” (Harrow), “When, to their airy hall, my Fathers’ voice”.

1804

·       Jan 22. 16^th birthday.

·       Jul. “Reply to an Italian nun” (“Dear simple girl...”).

·       Dec 1. School exercise from the “Prometheus Vinctus” of Aeschylus, Harrow.

1805

·       Jan 22. 17^th birthday.

·       Jul. “On Change of Masters at a Great Public School”, Harrow.

·       Jul. Leaves Harrow after four years of attendance.

·       Oct. Enters Trinity College, Cambridge.

·       n.d. “To Caroline” (“Think’st thou I saw thy beauteous eyes”), “To Caroline” (“Oh! when shall the grave hide for ever my sorrow?”), “To Caroline” (“When I hear you express an affection so warm”), “To Emma”, “To Caroline” (“You say you love, and yet your eye”, unknown year, possibly also 1805), “To the Duke of Dorset”, Translation from Anacreon (Ode 5), Ossian's Address to the Sun in “Carthon”, “A Woman’s Hair”.

1806

·       Jan 22. 18^th birthday.

·       Oct 9. “To Eliza”, Southwell.

·       Oct 26. “The Tear”.

·       Oct 27. “Reply to Some Verses of J. M. B. Pigot, Esq., on the Cruelty of His Mistress”.

·       Oct 28. “Granta: A Medley”.

·       Oct. “On the Death of Mr. Fox”, Southwell.

·       Nov 7. “To M---”.

·       Nov 16. “Imitated from Catullus: To Ellen”.

·       Nov 26. “Answer to Some Elegant Verses Sent by a Friend to the Author, Complaining that One of His Descriptions was Rather Too Warmly Drawn”.

·       Nov. Fugitive Pieces privately printed and suppressed.

·       Dec 1. “To a Knot of Ungenerous Critics”.

·       Dec 23. “The First Kiss of Love”.

·       Dec 29. “L’amité est l’amour sans ailes”.

·       Dec. “Soliloquy of a Bard in the Country”; “The Prayer of Nature”.

·       n.d. “Adrian’s to His Soul when Dying” (trans. of Hadrian’s Latin), “On a Distant View of the Village and School of Harrow on the Hill”, “Thoughts Suggested by a College Examination”, “To a Beautiful Quaker”, “To Lesbia”, “Answer to a Beautiful Poem, Written by Montgomery”, “Lines Addressed to the Rev. J. T. Becher on His Advising the Author to Mix More with Society”, “Fragment, Written Shortly After the Marriage of Miss Chaworth”, “Remembrance”, “To A Lady, Who Presented the Author with the Velvet Band which Bound her Tresses”.

1807

·       Jan 10. “To Marion”.

·       Jan 14. “On the Eyes of Miss A--- H---”.

·       Jan 15. “To a Vain Lady”.

·       Jan 16. “To Anne” (“Oh, Anne, your offences to me have been grievous”).

·       Jan 22. 19^th birthday.

·       Jan. “To ---”.

·       Jan. Poems on Various Occasions (48 poems). Anonymous, privately printed, 36 poems from the suppressed Fugitive Pieces (Nov 1806).

·       Mar 8. “To the Author of a Sonnet”.

·       Jun. Hours of Idleness, 1^st edn. 1^st officially published work (39 poems).

·       Sep 2. “Lines Written Beneath an Elm in the Churchyard of Harrow”.

·       Sep. “On Revisiting Harrow”.

·       n.d. “To the Earl of Clare”, “The Adieu, Written under the Impression that the Author Would Soon Die”, “To Anne” (“Oh say not, sweet Anne, that the Fates have decreed”), “On Finding a Fan”, “Farewell to the Muse”, “To an Oak at Newstead”, “To My Son”.

1808

·       Jan 22. 20^th birthday.

·       Feb 23. Song (“Breeze of the night in gentler sighs”).

·       Jun 10. “There Was          a Time, I Need not Name”.

·       Aug 12. “And Wilt Thou Weep When I Am Low?”.

·       Aug 13. “Remind Me Not, Remind Me Not”.

·       Aug 20. “To a Youthful Friend”.

·       Sep. Takes residence at Newstead Abbey.

·       Oct 30. “Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog”, Newstead Abbey.

·       Nov 2. “Well! Thou Art Happy”.

·       Oct-Nov. Works on English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

·       Dec 2. “To a Lady, On Being Asked My Reason for Quitting England in the Spring”.

·       n.d. “Lines Inscribed upon a Cup from a Skull”, Newstead Abbey.

·       n.d. Poems Original and Translated, 2^nd edn. of Hours of Idleness (38 poems, 5 published for the 1^st time).

1809

·       Jan 22. 21^st birthday.

·       Mar. English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 1^st edn. (696 lines).

·       Spring/summer. Prepares 2^nd edn. of English Bards.

·       Jul 2. Sails from Falmouth on the Lisbon packet Princess Elizabeth.

·       Jul 7. Arrives in Lisbon.

·       Jul 12-16. Visits Cintra.

·       Jul 20. Leaves Lisbon on horseback for Seville.

·       Jul 25. Arrives in Seville.

·       Jul 29. Arrives in Cadiz.

·       Jun 30. “Lines to Mr Hodgson”.

·       Aug 4. Arrives in Gibraltar.

·       Aug 16. Sails from Gibraltar on the Townshend Packet.

·       Aug 31. Arrives in Malta. Affair with Mrs Spencer Smith (“Florence”).

·       Sep 14. “Lines written in an Album, at Malta”.

·       Sep 19. Sails from Malta in brig-of-war Spider.

·       Sep 23. Between Kefallonia and Zakynthos (Ionian Islands).

·       Sep 26. Anchor off Patras.

·       Sep 27. Between Ithaca and the mainland.

·       Sep 29. Lands at Prevesa.

·       Sep. “To Florence”.

·       Oct 1. Leaves Prevesa for Janina (modern Greece); “Stanzas composed during a Thunderstorm”.

·       Oct 5. Arrives in Janina.

·       Oct 11. Leaves Janina for Tepeleni (modern Albania).

·       Oct 19. Arrives in Tepeleni.

·       Oct 20. Received by Ali Pacha.

·       Oct 23. Leaves Tepeleni for Janina.

·       Oct 26. Arrives in Janina.

·       Oct 31. Begins Childe Harold, Canto I, Janina, Albania.

·       Oct. English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 2^nd edn. (1050 lines).

·       Nov 3. Leaves Janina for Prevesa.

·       Nov 8. Arrives in Prevesa.

·       Nov 8. Leaves Prevesa, anchors off Parga.

·       Nov 10 – Dec 25. Roams around Greece by land and sea, including the Ambracian Gulf, the Gulf of Corinth, Missolonghi, Thebes and Delphi.

·       Nov 14. “Stanzas written in passing the Ambracian Gulf”.

·       Dec 25. Arrives in Athens.

·       Dec 30. Finishes the first canto of Childe Harold.

·       n.d. “Stanzas to a Lady, on Leaving England”; “The Girl of Cadiz” (replaced with “To Inez” in Child Harold); “To Dives: A Fragment”.

1810

·       Jan 13. Visits Eleusis.

·       Jan 16. Visits Mount Pentelicus.

·       Jan 16. “The Spell is broke, the Charm is flown!”.

·       Jan 19. Leaves Athens, arrives in Vari.

·       Jan 22. 22^nd birthday.

·       Jan 23. Visits the temple of Athena in Sunium (Sounion).

·       Jan 25. Visits the plain of Marathon.

·       Jan 25. “To Inez”; incorporated into Childe Harold, I, 84-85.

·       Jan 26. Returns to Athens.

·       Mar 5. Leaves Athens aboard the sloo-of-war Pylades.

·       Mar 8. Arrives in Smyrna (modern Turkey, west coast).

·       Mar 13. Leaves Smyrna.

·       Mar 15. Visits the temple of Artemis at Ephesus.

·       Mar 16. Leaves Ephesus, returns to Smyrna.

·       Mar 28. Finishes Childe Harold, Canto II, Smyrna.

·       Apr 11. Sails from Smyrna on the frigate Salsette.

·       Apr 12. Anchors off Tenedos, an island near the Hellespont.

·       Apr 13. Visits the ruins of Alexandria Troas.

·       Apr 16. Attempts to swim the Hellespont, explores the Troad.

·       May 3. Swims the Hellespont together with Mr Ekenhead.

·       May 9. “Written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos”.

·       May 13. Arrives in Constantinople.

·       Jun. Translation of the Nurse’s Dole in the Medea of Euripides.

·       Jul 10. An Ambassador’s audience with Sultan Mahmoud II.

·       Jul 14. Sails from Constantinople on the frigate Salsette.

·       Jul 18. Returns to Athens.

·       Jul 21. Leaves for Morea.

·       Jul 26. Arrives at Patras.

·       Aug. Visits Veli Pasha, Tripolitza.

·       Sep. Second excursion to Morea

·       Oct 13. Returns to Athens.

·       Oct. “My Epitaph”.

·       n.d. “Lines in the Travellers’ Book at Orchomenus”; “Maid of Athens, ere we part”; “Substitute for an Epitaph”.

1811

·       Jan 22. 23^rd birthday.

·       Jan. “Lines written beneath a Picture”.

·       Mar 11-14. Hints form Horace (844 lines final version, some lines added in Jun), Capuchin Convent, Athens.

·       Mar 17. “The Curse of Minerva” (312 lines), Capuchin Convent, Athens.

·       Mar. “On Parting”.

·       Apr 22. Sails from Greece on the Hydra.

·       Apr 30. Arrives in Malta.

·       Jun 2. Leaves Malta for England on the frigate Volage.

·       Jul 14. Lands at Sheerness. Divides time between London and Newstead.

·       May 16. “Epitaph for Joseph Blacket, late Poet and Shoemaker”.

·       May 26. “Farewell to Malta”.

·       Aug 1. Mother dies.

·       Aug 26. “Newstead Abbey”.

·       Sep 14. “On Moore’s Last Operatic Farce, or Farcical Opera”.

·       Oct 11. “To Thyrza”; “Epistle to a Friend”.

·       Dec 8. “Away, away, ye Notes of Woe!”.

·       n.d. “Well! Thou art happy”.   

·       n.d. English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 5^th edn. (1070 lines, final version).

1812

·       Jan 22. 24^th birthday.

·       Feb 27. Maiden speech in House of Lords.

·       Mar 10. Childe Harold I & II, 1^st edn. + 14 poems. Final version reached in 7^th edn. (Feb 1814): 93+109 stanzas, 836+926 = 1762 lines.

·       Apr 17. Childe Harold I & II, 2^nd edn. + 6 new poems (20 all).

·       Apr. Begins liaison with Lady Caroline Lamb.

·       Jun 27. Childe Harold I & II, 3^rd edn.

·       Sep 14. Childe Harold I & II, 4^th edn., “Addition to the Preface”.

·       Oct. “The Waltz”.

·       Dec 5. Childe Harold I & II, 5^th edn.

·       n.d. “On the Quotation”; “To the Honble. Mrs. George Lamb”.  

1813

·       Jan 15. “By the Rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept”; “Herod’s Lament for Mariamne”.

·       Jan 22. 25^th birthday.

·       Mar. Writes 1^st version of The Giaour. “The Waltz” privately printed.

·       May 19. To Thomas Moore (“Oh you, who in all names can tickle the town”).

·       Spring. “The Waltz” (257 lines), 1^st edn. Anonymous.

·       Jun 2. “On Lord Thurlow’s Poems”.

·       Jun 5. The Giaour, 1^st edn. (685 lines).

·       Aug 11. Childe Harold I & II, 6^th edn.

·       Aug. Liaison with Augusta.

·       Sep. “Impromptu, in Reply to a Friend”.

·       Nov 13. Begins keeping 1^st journal. Until 19 Apr 1814.

·       Nov 27. The Giaour, 7^th edn. (1334 lines, final version).

·       Nov 29. The Bride of Abydos (2 cantos, 1215 lines), 1^st edn. Four editions more until the end of the year: 8 lines added to Canto II (483+732 lines).

·       Nov. Writes The Bride of Abydos.

·       Dec. The Bride of Abydos (2 cantos, 1215 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Dec 9. “The Devil’s Drive”.

·       Dec 17. Sonnets to Genevra (2 poems).

·       Dec 18. Begins The Corsair.

·       n.d. “Remember him, whom Passion’s Power”.

1814

·       Jan 22. 26^th birthday.

·       Feb 1. The Corsair, 1^st edn. (1859 lines). 10 000 copies sold on the first day. Six editions more until the end of the year. Notes, 6 poems, 4 lines to stanza xi, and an unnumbered note to line 226 added to the original.

·       Feb 1. Childe Harold I & II, 7^th edn. 10 additional stanzas to Canto II (109 all), Dedication “To Ianthe” (45 lines) & 14 new poems (34 all).

·       Feb 1. The Bride of Abydos, 6^th edn.

·       Feb 1. The Giaour, 9^th edn.

·       Mar. Sits to Thomas Phillips for a portrait.

·       Apr 18. “Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte”, 1^st edn. (15 stanzas, 135 lines). 1 stanza inserted between 2^nd and 12^th editions. The last three stanzas (xvii, xviii, xix) printed only after LB’s death in 1831; first appended to the poem in 1832 (final version: 19 stanzas, 171 lines).

·       May 4. Stanzas for Music (“I speak not, I trace not...”).

·       May 14. Begins Lara.

·       May 29. “Condolatory Address”.

·       May. “Address intended to be recited at the Caledonian Meeting”.

·       Jun 12. “She Walks in Beauty”.

·       Jun. “Fragment of an Epistle to Thomas Moore”.

·       Jun. Completes Lara.

·       Aug 6. Lara (2 cantos, 1272 lines), 1^st edn. Anonymously with “Jacqueline” (not by LB).

·       Sep 9. Proposes to Annabella Milbanke.

·       Sep 18. Annabella accepts his proposal.

·       Oct 7. “Elegiac Stanzas on the Death of Sir Peter Parker, Bart.”.

·       Oct. Begins Hebrew Melodies.

·       Dec 12. “Julian (A Fragment)”.

·       Dec 24. Leaves for Seaham.

·       Dec 30. Arrives at Seaham.

·       n.d. The Corsair, 9^th edn., long note to the last line.

·       n.d. “Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte”; “Ich Dien”; “Answer to –‘s Professions of Affection”.

1815

·       Jan 2. Marries Annabella Milbanke, Seaham.

·       Jan 22. 27^th birthday.

·       Feb 12. “To Belshazzar”.

·       Feb 17. “The Destruction of Sennacherib”.

·       Mar 27. “On Napoleon’s Escape from Elba”.

·       Mar. Stanzas for Music (“There’s not a joy the world...”).

·       Apr. “Oh! snatched away in Beauty’s Bloom”.

·       Jun 25. “Napoleon’s Farewell”.   

·       Apr. Hebrew Melodies (24 pieces), 1^st edn.

·       Oct. Writes The Siege of Corinth.

·       Nov. Sends Murray the MS of The Siege of Corinth.

·       Nov. Writes Parisina.

·       Dec. Sends Parisina to the publisher.

·       Dec 10. Daughter Augusta Ada born.

·       n.d. “Song of Saul before the Last Battle”; “Were my Bosom as False as thou deem’st it to be”; “By the Waters of Babylon”; “On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus”; “All is Vanity, saith the Preacher”; “When Coldness wraps this Suffering Clay”; “Saul”.

1816

·       Jan 22. 28^th birthday.

·       Feb 7. The Siege of Corinth (1079 lines) & Parisina (586 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Apr 21. Separates from his wife.

·       Apr 25. Leaves England for good.

·       Apr. Visits Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp.

·       May 1-6. Begins Childe Harold, Canto III, Brussels.

·       May 4. Visits the field of Waterloo.

·       May 8. At Cologne.

·       May 10-16. Rhine journey: Bonn, Coblenz, Castle of Drachenfels, Mannheim.

·       May 16-18. At Karlsruhe.

·       May 20. At Basle.

·       May 25. Arrives in Sécheron, near Geneva.

·       May 27. Meets Shelley for the first time.

·       Jun 10. Moves to Villa Diodati, a few hundred yards from the Shelleys.

·       Jun 22. Begins a tour of Lake Geneva with Shelley: Meillerie, Clarens, Vevey, Chateau de Chillon, Gibbon’s house.

·       Jun 27. Completes Childe Harold, Canto III, Ouchy, near Lausanne.

·       Jul 1. Returns to Villa Diodati.

·       Jul 10. Completes “Prisoner of Chillon”.

·       Jul 18. “Monody on the Death of the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan”.

·       Jul 24. Stanzas to Augusta (“Though the day of my Destiny’s over”).

·       Jul. “The Dream” (206 lines), Villa Diodati; “Darkness” (82 lines); “Prometheus” (59 lines); Sonnet to Lake Leman; “A Fragment”.

·       Aug 29. Leaves for a tour of Chamouni and Mont Blanc.

·       Sep 1. Back at Villa Diodati.

·       Sep 17-29. Tour of Bernese Oberland.

·       Sep 17-29. Keeps 2^nd journal, aka Alpine Journal.

·       Sep. “Lines on hearing that Lady Byron was Ill”.

·       Sep-Oct. Writes first two acts of Manfred.

·       Oct 5. Leaves for Italy.

·       Oct 12. Arrives in Milan.

·       Nov 10. Arrives in Venice. Lives there for the next almost three years.

·       Nov 18. Childe Harold III (122 stanzas, 1102 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Nov 25. “On the Bust of Helen by Canova”.

·       Dec 5. “Prisoner of Chillon” (392 lines) and 7 poems, 1^st edn.

·       Dec 6. “Venice: A Fragment”.

·       Dec 24. “Song for the Luddites”; To Thomas Moore” (“What are you doing now”).

·       n.d. “Churchill’s Grave”; “To George Anson Byron”.

1817

·       Jan 12. Daughter Allegra born (from Claire Clarirmont).

·       Jan 22. 29^th birthday.

·       Jan-Feb. Takes part in the Venetian Carnival. Completes Manfred.

·       Feb 28. “So we’ll go no more a-roving”.

·       Mar 25. “Versicles”; “To Mr Murray” (“To hook the Reader, you, John Murray”).

·       Apr 17. Leaves Venice for Rome through Ferrara, Bologna and Florence.

·       Apr 20. “The Lament of Tasso” (247 lines).

·       Apr 29. Arrives in Rome.

·       May. Sits for bust by Thorwaldsen.

·       May 5. Finishes rewriting Act 3 of Manfred.

·       May 19. Witnesses public execution by guillotine of three robbers.

·       May 20. Leaves Rome for Venice.

·       May 28. Arrives in Venice.

·       Jun 4. Rents Villa Foscarini at La Mira on Brenta river.

·       Jun 16. Manfred (3 acts, 1338 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Jun 26. Begins Childe Harold, Canto IV. 1^st draft finished in 26 days [Coleridge] or one month and three days [Marchand].

·       Jul 17. “The Lament of Tasso” (247 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Jul 20 [Coleridge] or Jul 29 [Marchand]. Completes Childe Harold, Canto IV, 1^st draft (126 stanzas). The other 60 stanzas added mostly until the end of 1817, but at least two had to wait until spring 1818.

·       Jul. “To Thomas Moore” (“My boat is on the shore”).

·       Aug 21. “Epistle from Mr Murray to Dr Polidori”.

·       Oct 23. Announces to Murray the completion of Beppo.

·       Nov 13. Returns to Venice from La Mira.

1818

·       Jan 8. “Epistle to Mr Murray” (“My dear Mr Murray”).

·       Jan 19. Sends the MS of Beppo to Murray.

·       Jan 22. 30^th birthday.

·       Feb 18 [Coleridge] or Feb 28 [Marchand]. Beppo (95 stanzas, 760 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Feb 20. “On the Birth of John William Rizzo Hoppner”.

·       Feb. “E Nihilo Nihil”.

·       Apr 6. Lady Melbourne dies.

·       Apr 11. “To Mr Murray” (“Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times”); “Another Simple Ballat”; Ballad (to the tune of “Salley in our alley”).

·       Apr 28. Childe Harold IV (186 stanzas, 1674 lines), 1^st edn.

·       May 5. Beppo (99 stanzas, 792 lines), 5^th edn. Stanzas 28, 38, 39, 80 added.        

·       May. Rents Palazzo Mocenigo on Grand Canal.

·       Jul 3. Begins Don Juan, Canto I [Coleridge].

·       Jul 10. Completes “Ode to Venice” (160 lines).

·       Aug 23. Rides with Shelley on the Venice Lido.         

·       Sep 6. Begins Don Juan, Canto I, Venice [Marchand].

·       Sep 19. Don Juan, Dedication (136 lines).

·       Nov 1. Completes Don Juan, Canto I.

·       Dec 29. “The Duel”.

·       Dec–Jan 1819. Don Juan, Canto II.

·       n.d. “Verses on Sam Rogers”.

1819

·       Jan 22. 31^st birthday.

·       Jun 1. Leaves Venice for Ravenna to visit the Guicciolis.

·       Jun 10. Arrives in Ravenna via Bologna and Ferrara.

·       Jun 28. Mazeppa (20 sections, 869 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Jun. Writes The Prophecy of Dante, Ravenna [Coleridge].

·       Jun. “Stanzas to the Po”.

·       Jun-Jul. In love with Teresa Guiccioli.

·       Jul 15. Don Juan I & II (3504 lines), 1^st edn. Anonymous.

·       Jul 31. “Sonnet on the Nuptials of the Marquis Antonio Cavalli with the Countess Clelia Rasponi of Ravenna”.

·       Aug 12. “Sonnet to the Prince Regent”; Epigram (from the French of Rulhieres).

·       Sep-Oct. With Teresa at La Mira.

·       Nov. Count Guiccioli takes away his wife to Ravenna.

·       Dec 1. Stanzas (“Could Love for ever”).

·       Dec 24. Arrives at Ravenna.

·       Winter 1819/20. Don Juan, Cantos III & IV.

1820

·       Jan 2. “On My Wedding-Day”; “Epitaph for William Pitt”; “Epitaph” (“Posterity will ne’er survey”); “Epigram on Tom Paine”.

·       Jan 22. 32^nd birthday.

·       Feb. Moves to Palazzo Guiccioli.

·       Mar. Finishes The Prophecy of Dante [Marchand].

·       Feb 19. Sends Don Juan Canto II and III to Murray.

·       Feb 21. Completes translation of 1^st canto to Pulci’s Morgante Maggiore.

·       Mar 20. “Francesca of Rimini” (translation of Dante).

·       Mar 22. Epilogue (“There’s something in a stupid ass”).

·       Mar 23. “My Boy Hobbie O”.

·       Mar. Becomes cavalier servente of Teresa.

·       Apr 9. “Lines, addressed to Hobhouse on his election for Westminster”.

·       Jul. Finishes Marino Faliero.

·       Sep 28. “A Volume of Nonsense”.

·       Oct-Nov. Don Juan, Canto V.

·       Nov 5. “To Penelope”; Stanzas (“When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home”).        

·       Dec 10. “The Charity Ball”.

·       Dec 28. Sends Kinnaird Don Juan, Canto V.

1821

·       Jan 4. Begins keeping Ravenna Journal. Until Feb 17.

·       Jan 6. “Epigram on the Brazier’s address”.

·       Jan 13. Begins Sardanapalus, Ravenna. Finished May 27 [Marchand] or 28 [Coleridge].

·       Jan 22. 33^rd birthday. “On My Thirty-third Birthday”.

·       Feb 22. “Bowles and Campbell”.

·       Apr 21. Marino Faliero (5 acts, 3493 lines) & The Prophecy of Dante (4 cantos, 670 lines), 1^st edn.

·       May 7. The Vision of Judgement started and left off.

·       May 25. “Elegy”.

·       May 28. Completes Sardanapalus.

·       Jun 12. Begins The Two Foscari, Ravenna. Done in less than a month.

·       Jul 9. Completes The Two Foscari.

·       July 16. Begins Cain, Ravenna. Finished Sep 9.

·       Jul 30. “Who killed John Keats?”.

·       Aug 2. “From the French: Aegle, beauty and poet...”.

·       Aug 8. Don Juan III, IV & V (3192 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Aug 23. “To Mr Murray” (“For Orford and for Waldegrave”).

·       Aug. Writes “The Blues” (325 lines).

·       Sep 9. Completes Cain.

·       Sep 16. “The Irish Avatar”.

·       Sep. The Vision of Judgement resumed.

·       Oct 4. The Vision of Judgement completed.

·       Oct 9. Begins Heaven and Earth, Ravenna. Done in couple of weeks.

·       Oct 15. Begins keeping 4^th journal, Detached Thoughts. Until 18 May 1822.

·       Nov 1. Arrives at Pisa. Lives there till 28 Sep 1822.

·       Nov 6. “Stanzas written on the Road between Florence and Pisa”.

·       Nov 9. Heaven and Earth sent to Murray. He delays publication. LB finally gives it to Hunt who does publish it (1 Jan 1823).

·       Dec 18. Begins Werner, Pisa. Completed in a month.

·       Dec 19. Sardanapalus (5 acts, 2832 lines), The Two Foscari (5 acts, 1981 lines) & Cain (3 acts, 1794 lines), 1^st edn.

·       n.d. “Napoleon’s Snuff-box”; Martial, Lib. I, Epig. 1.

1822                     

·       Jan 20. Completes Werner.

·       Jan 22. 34^th birthday.

·       Apr 20. Daughter Allegra dies.

·       Apr-Jul. Writes The Deformed Transformed, completed in Pisa.

·       Jun. Begins Don Juan, Canto VI. Completes Canto XVI by Mar 1823!

·       Jul 8. Shelley drowned in Bay of Spezia.

·       Jul 16. Witnesses the cremation of Shelley’s remains, Viareggio.

·       Aug. Epigrams (“Oh, Castlereagh! thou art a patriot now”).

·       Sep 27. Leaves for Genoa.

·       Oct 3? Arrives in Albaro (Genoa), stays at Casa Saluzzo.

·       Oct 15. The Vision of Judgement (106 stanzas, 848 lines), 1^st edn., The Liberal, No. 1, pp. 3-39.

·       Nov 23. Werner (5 acts, 3223 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Dec 14. Sends Don Juan, Canto XII, to Kinnaird. Seven cantos (VI to XII) wait for publication.

·       Dec. Begins The Age of Bronze.

1823

·       Jan 1. Heaven and Earth (3 parts, 1192 lines), 1^st edn., The Liberal, No. II, pp. 165-206.

·       Jan 10 [Marchand] or 18 [Coleridge]. Completes The Age of Bronze.

·       Jan 22. 35^th birthday.

·       Feb 20. The Deformed Transformed (3 parts, 1392 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Jan-Feb. Writes The Island.

·       Feb 14. Completes The Island.

·       Mar 9. “The Conquest”.

·       Apr 1. The Age of Bronze (18 sections, 778 lines), 1^st edn. Anonymous.

·       Apr 26. “The Blues” (365 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Apr. Impromptu (“Beneath Blessington’s eyes”).

·       May 6. Completes Don Juan, Canto XVI.

·       Jun 19. “Journal in Cephalonia”.

·       Jun 26. The Island (4 cantos, 1425 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Jul 15. Don Juan VI, VII & VIII (2784 lines), 1^st edn. Original Preface.

·       Jul 16. Leaves for Greece on the brig Hercules.

·       Aug 3. Lands at Argostoli, Cephalonia, Greece.

·       Aug 11. Leaves to visit Ithaca.

·       Aug 29. Don Juan IX, X & XI (2096 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Sep 4. Moves to Metaxata, Cephalonia.

·       Sep 10. “Aristomenes”.    

·       Sep 28-30. 5^th and last journal in Cephalonia.

·       Dec 17. Don Juan XII, XIII & XIV (2416 lines), 1^st edn.

·       Dec 30. Arrives in Zante in the morning, sails for Missolonghi in the evening.

1824

·       Jan 4. Lands at Missolonghi.

·       Jan 22. 36^th birthday. “On this Day I complete my Thirty-sixth Year”.

·       Mar 23. Don Juan XV & XVI (1824 lines), 1^st edn.     

·       Apr 9. Writes his last letter, to Barff and Barry.

·       Apr 19. Dies, Missolonghi, Greece.

·       Oct 29. “On this Day I complete my Thirty-sixth Year” published in the Morning Chronicle.