![]() ![]() ![]() Certainly, natural beauty was often preferable to human evil and the problems attendant upon civilization, but Byron also recognized Nature’s dangerous and harsh elements. Unlike Wordsworth, who idealized Nature and essentially deified it, Byron saw Nature more as a companion to humanity. To Byron, Nature was a powerful complement to human emotion and civilization. To Byron, liberty is a right of all human beings, while the denial of liberty is one of mankind’s greatest failings. Perhaps his most powerful statement against oppression is found in “The Prisoner of Chillon,” in which he traces the eventual mental oppression of a patriot who stood against the oppression of his people. These poetic reflections bear witness to Byron' experience with battlefields of old, such as Waterloo, and present struggles such as the Greek struggle against Ottoman/Turkish occupation. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage often digresses into long tirades against oppressors. Several of Byron’s poems, particularly those based on his travels, raise the problem of oppression throughout Europe and defend the necessity of human liberty. ![]()
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