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Byron was one of those Romantic poets who died young.  Was there a connection between these early deaths and the so-called Romantic Movement, of which the poets were champions?  Byron died of fever in his 36th year; Russian poet Pushkin, at the age of 38, was killed in a duel to defend his troublesome wife's reputation (or whatever that was left of it); another leading Russian poet of the time, Lermontov, was killed in another duel, age 27; English poet Shelley, for his part, was drowned when 30 years old.  

So, it seems that death, as much as art, has made the Romantic Movement memorable.  Sure, Goethe lived to advanced age, well-respected and honored in his lifetime, but the "young man" in his celebrated Sorrows of Young Man Werther does commit suicide at a tender age, out of unrequited love for a married lady. 

Byron came into the world in  

1788, a few years after the beginning of the Great French Revolution and a few years before a young French military officer Bonaparte Napoleon took much of Europe by storm.  Baby Byron was born club-footed.  (What can we say about this from a psychoanalytical point of view?)  After unexpectedly inheriting a noble title from a relative, Lord Byron went on an extended trip over the Mediterranean and Europe, including Greece, the ancient glory of which would exert great influence upon him.  He soon published his Childe Harolde's Pilgrimage, based on this journey, and became a celebrity overnight.

As quickly Byron found himself entangled in a number of affairs with women.  Among his lovers over time were Lady Caroline Lamb, Lady Oxford, Mary Godwin (who was his friend Shelley's stepdaughter), the wife of his landlord while he was in Venice, and the wife of a baker, also in Venice.  Byron had married Annabella Milbanke in 1815, but the marriage proved to be a failure within a year.  It was after this misadventure in married life that Byron left England, in 1816, and would never return again.

The focus of Byron's last years, aside from poetry (Don Juan) was Greece (which explains his costume in the picture shown above).  He had an idealist vision for Greece, then dominated by Turkey, believing that the birthplace of classic beauty should be free and independent again.  He was actively involved in the Greek nationalist movement when he died in 1824.

In the poem below the poet finds himself in a bad mood and presents a rather bleak view of

                                Life

The world's a bubble, and the life of man
    Less than a span:
In his conception wretched, from the womb
    So to the tomb;
Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years
    With cares and fears.
Who then to frail mortality shall trust
But limns on water, or but writes in dust.

Yet whilst with sorrow here we live opprest,
    What life is best?
Courts are but only superficial schools
    To dandle fools;
The rural parts are turn'd into a den
    Of savage men;
And where's a city from foul vice so free,
But may be term'd the worst of all the three?

Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed,
    Or pains his head;
Those that live single take it for a curse,
    Or do things worse;
Some would have children; those that have them moan
    Or wish them gone:
What is it, then, to have, or have no wife,
But single thraldom, or a double strife?

Our own affections still at home to please
    Is a disease;
To cross the seas to any foreign soil,
    Peril and toil;
Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease,
    We are worse in peace:
What then remains, but that we still should cry
For being born, or, being born, to die?

Boy, he really could whine, couldn't he?

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