The English poet George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824), was one of the most important figures of the romantic movement. Because of his works, active life, and physical beauty he came to be considered the personification of the romantic poet-hero.

George Gordon Noel Byron was born on Jan. 22, 1788, into a family of fast-decaying nobility. His lame foot, the absence of any fatherly authority in the household after Captain "Mad Jack" Byron's death in 1791, the contempt of his aristocratic relatives for the impoverished widow and her son, his Calvinistic up-bringing at the hands of a Scottish nurse, the fickleness and stupidity of his mother--all conspired to hurt the pride and sensitiveness of the boy. This roused in him a need for self-assertion which he soon sought to gratify in three main directions: love, poetry, and action.

On the death of his granduncle in 1798, Byron inherited the title...