Nature in Byron’s poetry

I find Lord Byron’s poetry different from the other Romantics in its depiction of nature. Byron was a Romantic, undoubtedly but in his verse his individuality is prominent more so because from what I have had the chance to study so far, he never mingles nature with his individuality, unlike Wordsworth and Coleridge. Nature in Byron is evocative of both the light and dark forces of life; Byron portrays nature in a realistic manner that in itself is exotic and mysterious. Essentially, he wrote what he saw of nature around him. I came across the following lines from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and for me they sum up the concept of nature in Byron perfectly;

There is pleasure in the pathless woods, There is rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrude, By the deep sea, and music in its roar,

I love not man the less, but Nature more.

I think that Byron believed nature to be its own entity, not a “soul” to be associated with that of mankind. The depiction of nature in his poetry whereby nature is both warm and aggressive is highly appealing to me. I believe unless we experience the bad we can never come to appreciate the good and that holds true for nature as well. In Byron’s poetry we get a rawer, wilder view of our natural environment; it isn’t something that has to be tamed.

His poetry incorporates natural imagery from the Grecian landscape to the English countryside to the Turkish seas. It is this variety of images that fascinates the reader and captures our interest.

Upon a recent reading of Byron’s poem “I Would I Were a Careless Child”, I became aware of the rugged natural landscape in Byron’s poetry, and his realistic depiction of it. I’m personally attracted to the darker images of the natural scenery and hence the presence of the Highland scenery in a variety of his poems is gratifying. There are times when evident beauty bores me, but the shadowy side of our landscape is what adds interest and wonder to the bland landscape. For me, Byron’s poetry provides a blend of both things, a trait that is worthy of notice.