Custom essays on “Darkness” by Byron

The largest representative of romanticism was a famous English poet Lord Byron. Heroes of Byron are dark, full of pride exiles, battling with the world and embody the absolute, bordering on the absurd individualism.
His poem “Darkness” was written in 1816, and that was the “Year without summer”. The reason of that cold weather in Europe was ash in the atmosphere that blocked the sunshine, so this darkness inspired the author.
This poem has historical context and is supposed to have anti-biblical nature, even despite its references to the Bible. In general, the theme of the poem is the end of the world, and so Byron uses the hellish biblical language to show the reality of events to his readers. And it is a well-known fact, that the poem can be interpreted as a reference to Bible, Matthew 24:29: “the sun shall be darkened.”( Gordon,57)
In his poem “Darkness,” Byron presents bright and powerfull images of chaos and oblivion. The sun unexpectedly disappeared, and people tried to make large bonfires, but they destroyed what they had been supposed to illuminate. To point out this sense of chaos, Byron presents words with antithetical definitions. Darkness covered the world, and light was showed as a blunder and crime that destroys both civilization and nature. It is surely gothic elements, that make readers behold great emotions. The text is full of horrific, supernatural, it contains darkness and mystery.
As a gothic poem, “Darkness” creates dramatic feelings, gloom and mystery. Ruin, death, and oblivion are evident themes in Byron’s poetry, and this poem indicates these themes. Byron’s pessimistic view makes the poem a key to exploring Byron’s struggle with reality. (Gordon,98)
It’s important to point out the biblical theme of the poem, and its connection with natural phenomenon. As we see, riots, suicides, fear are associated with the strange weather, destruction of the sun. These events had eradicated people’s hope for a long life, and even their beliefs in God.
Byron points the idea of the men becoming beasts, the idea of total destruction, when everything is destroyed, all the humankind are becoming irrational beasts. Byron vision of men as devils really impress. He shows the picture of the end of times: cities are in fire, humans are beasts.
In conclusion with the analysis, it should be said, that a poem has a depressing, catastrophic mood. So it is a gothic poem, having specific characteristics: the type of plot development, determined by the specific key emerging in this genre aspects of human existence: the restriction of human freedom outside of fate, the physical conclusion, the collision with the irrational and the devil, mental disorder, physical and psychological violence.

Bibliography
Sprague, Henry. A guide to Romantic Period Poetry. Glascow, Scotland: Lochstone – Publications, 2002.
Gordon, George. “Darkness”. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. London: Norton, 2006.
Davidson, Graham. “The Supernatural Poems: The Ancient Mariner”. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990.