Byronic Hero
The Byronic Hero (German translation often: Byron'scher Held) is a literary archetype based on the male protagonists of the works of the British poet Lord Byron (1788-1824).
Characteristic
The Byronic Hero is a form of the antihero . He differs from the typical antihero through his intelligence and his purposeful actions. In contrast to the classic hero , the Byronic Hero does not represent superior morals and does not fight for noble goals for the common good, but rather puts one's own personality above the world itself. This assumed superiority is linked to cynicism and an antipathy- provoking arrogance, which makes him a social outsider: a position that fills him with pride instead of frustration , since being a loner emphasizes his personal uniqueness all the more.
He sees himself as a social rebel who despises rules, customs and social positions. It is a purely personal rebellion, the aim of which is solely to enforce one's own desires and not a real social change. Instead, he is the beneficiary of this society, since he himself belongs to a higher class and has appropriate wealth, which allows him independence and a luxurious lifestyle.
Often the Byronic Hero is surrounded by a dark secret; a problematic and depressing, perhaps even criminal, past is seen as the reason for his sullen mood. In addition, he is dominated by great passions, these can be artistic or erotic in nature and are expressed in uncontrollable emotional outbursts that often have a destructive effect on others. He is often inconsiderate towards others, including people he thinks he loves.
At the same time, the Byronic Hero repeatedly suffers frustrations, often with the libido as well , because the fulfillment of his greatest passion is not possible or is denied him. This lack of inner satisfaction ultimately leads to a self-destructive tendency, the hero breaks down on his unfulfilled longings.
In contrast to the classic hero, who appears as a figure of light and has predominantly positive character traits desired by society, the Byronic Hero is associated with the dark and has more negative, egoistic traits that often meet with rejection and incomprehension from his fellow men. The Byronic Hero is a figure who is both repulsive and fascinating. His charisma arises from the dark sides of his personality, in which the reader or viewer can find an identification surface for the repressed or suppressed negative parts of his own personality.
synonym
A synonym for the Byronic hero is the Romantic Hero (eng .: Romantic Hero ), based on the cultural and historical epoch of romance . The Byronic Hero was a frequent subject during the Romantic era . This went beyond literature: The "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" by Caspar David Friedrich is considered a pictorial representation of the lonely hero turned away from the world he stands above.
The Byronic Hero in literature
First appearance
The figure of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost is considered the forerunner of the Byronic Hero . In Byron's works, the Byronic Hero appears in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage , in the poems: The Giaour , The Corsair , Lara and in Manfred . The protagonist in Glenarvon by Caroline Lamb and Lord Ruthven in The Vampyre by Polidori are early imitations of the typical Byronian hero.
Later adaptations
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The Byronian hero became the forerunner of the topos of the "superfluous man" in Russian literature in the mid-19th century, and Lord Byron is often referred to openly in the works of this period ("Byronism"). The figure of Eugene Onegin in Alexander Pushkin 's novel of the same name is a striking example of the Byronic Hero type . Fyodor Dostoyevsky created another Russian representative in 1873 with the sinister Nikolai Stavrogin ( The Demons ).
Further variations of the archetype can be found in Anglo-Saxon literature since the early 19th century. With Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen created a Byronic Hero who was purified at the end of the novel and who found his way back into society. Rochester in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is seriously injured and blinded and thus punished for breaking the law before he is finally allowed to find happiness in life. Emily Brontë in Wuthering Heights , on the other hand, remains closely linked to the role model : the protagonist Heathcliff fulfills almost all of the characteristics and remains trapped in his personality until the end.
The title character in Nestroys Der Zerrissene was interpreted by Egon Friedell as a parody of Byronism.
Another variant is Margaret Mitchell's character Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind , here the Byronic Hero tries to find entry into society himself, and in the end gives up his passion for his wife Scarlett on his own initiative. Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is another famous example from the early 20th century. A more recent example is Ladislav Almásy in Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient (1992).
The first woman to play the Byronic hero role is the protagonist of the novel Die Vegetarianin by Korean author Han Kang , which appeared in the original language in 2007 and was translated into German in 2016.
Popular literature
In modern entertainment literature, Anne Rice drew on the literary model in two ways in her novel Interview with the Vampire : On the one hand, the protagonist Louis has many of the Byronic Hero traits, and on the other hand, the image of the vampire is part of the successor to Polidoris Lord Ruthven which in turn reflects Byron himself.
The protagonist of the US comic series Batman is also based on the Byronic Hero, due to his dark, unresolved past and the inner turmoil associated with it, as well as the conflicting relationship with his city of Gotham City , in which he remains an outsider.
In the Harry Potter series , the figure of the teacher Severus Snape follows the scheme. He has a depressing past: his tough childhood, the bullying experience as a teenager and the following of Voldemort. He is not driven by higher goals, but by personal motives. The passion that dominates and torments him is love for a woman. When she turns away from him, he joins Voldemort. As a result, he becomes the bearer of a prophecy that leads to the death of that woman. Vengeance and guilt are the motives for joining Voldemort's adversary, Albus Dumbledore. He shows arrogant pride in his superior knowledge of potions and is prone to tactless cynicism and uncontrolled outbursts of anger.
Variants of the archetype were often used in trivial literature for women, for example in the American " Harlequin Romances " series.
With the figure of Christian Gray ( Shades of Gray , 2011/12), EL James also introduced the type into erotic literature .
Other media
Dr. House from the US television series of the same name is a current variant of the Byronic Hero. Another example is the misanthropic monologue-prone Rust Cohle from the US television series True Detective .
literature
- Pat Rogers (Ed.): An Outline of English Literature , Oxford: OUP, 1998, pp. 273 ff.
- Ewald Standop and Edgar Mertner: Englische Literaturgeschichte , Wiesbaden: Quelle & Meyer, 1992, p. 419 f.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Byronic Hero, Gonzage University Homepage (eng.) ( Memento of the original from April 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Characteristics of the Byronic Hero
- ↑ Egon Friedell: That's classic, Vienna 1922, p. 15.
- ^ Felix Stephan : Lady Byron. How young, non-European authors are reviving universalist literature. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, No. 108, 12./13. May 2018, p. 20.
- ↑ Anne Rice's Homepage (eng.)
- ↑ Darkly Romantic Comics (eng.) ( Memento of the original from February 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ For example Richard Currie: Severus Snape as a Byronic Figure: Romance in Harry Potter. In: The Mid-Atlantic Almanack . Vol. 17, 2008, pp. 119-127; Lisa Andres: “Shut Up in the Caved Trunk of his Body”. Locating JK Rowling's Severus Snape in the Tradition of the Byronic Hero. MA Thesis, North Carolina State University, 2010; Vera Cuntz-Leng: Snape Written, Filmed and Slashed: Harry Potter and the Autopoietic Feedback Loop. In: Lisa S. Brenner (Ed.): Playing Harry Potter: Essays and Interviews on Fandom and Performance. McFarland & Company, Jefferson NC 2015, pp. 55-74, here pp. 62 f.
- ↑ Gray on 'Fifty Shades of Gray'. Retrieved April 7, 2016 . Fifty Shades of Gray and the Byronic Hero. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 7, 2016 ; Retrieved April 7, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Barbara Barnett: Dr. Gregory House: Romantic Hero
