often dangerous conditions. Social unrest grew,
reaching a peak in the 1810s, and culminating in
the Peterloo massacre in Manchester in August
- Sixty thousand workers had gathered at a
public meeting to demand political reform. They
were attacked by mounted militiamen, and
eleven unarmed citizens were killed, with many
more being injured. Shelley was indignant about
the massacre and thought that England was on
the brink of a revolution that would pit the
oppressors against the oppressed. Byron learned
of the incident in Italy, and he too thought
England was facing imminent revolution. How-
ever, the revolution did not occur, and political
reform had to wait until the passing of the Great
Reform Act in 1832.
Critical Overview.
These seven stanzas from Canto IV ofChilde
Harold’s Pilgrimage have always been held in
high regard. Many editions of Byron’s works
that present only sections ofChilde Harold’s Pil-
grimageare likely to include them, and they are
also included in numerous anthologies. Many crit-
ics over the last fifty years of the twentieth century
commented on these stanzas. M. K. Joseph, in
Byron, the Poet, points out that the ‘‘concluding
seascape’’ in Canto IV, aswell as other elements
in the Canto, such as the ‘‘river-poem’’ and the
‘‘mountain-poem’’ drawson ‘‘the whole repertory
of forms provided by eighteenth-century topo-
graphical poetry.’’ Byron is able to give this con-
vention ‘‘renewed life by working from first-hand
material and the resources of a receptive imagina-
tion.’’ InChilde Harold’s Pilgrimage, Cantos III
and IV and The Vision of Judgement,Patricia
M. Ball notes how in the stanzas immediately pre-
ceding the apostrophe to the ocean, Byron makes
other references to the sea ‘‘until he is ready to
unleash the full assault and bring the idea of the
seatousinitsmostexaltedandawesomeform.’’In
the apostrophe itself he ‘‘emphas[es] the vastness of
his subject by repeated superlatives and a vocabu-
lary of power and grandeur.’’ Peter J. Manning in
Byron and His Fictionsdrawsattentiontohow
the apostrophe ends ratherdifferently than it had
begun. He writes: ‘‘Byron strives to concludeChilde
Harold IVwith a peroration of definitive and com-
prehensive closure. His grandly rhetorical address
to the Ocean nonetheless gradually modulates
into nostalgic childhood memories.’’ Manning
also points out that the apostrophe begins with
the ocean as ‘‘an epitome of masculine power’’ but
ends with an image of the ocean as a ‘‘docilely
feminine creature supporting the young Byron.’’
Andrew Rutherford, inByron: A Critical Study,
views the apostrophe to the ocean in light of
Canto IV as a whole. The canto is ‘‘a long medita-
tion on Time’s works, defeats, and victories, culmi-
nating in the address to Ocean, which for Byron is a
symbol of Eternity.’’CRITICISMBryan Aubrey
Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English. In this essay, he
discusses the apostrophe to the ocean, fromChilde
Harold’s Pilgrimage, in terms of the Roman ruins
that helped to inspire it and also considers in what
sense the apostrophe to the ocean might be consid-
ered a romantic poem.
The apostrophe to the ocean is the most well-
known section of Canto IV ofChilde Harold’s
Pilgrimage. Serving as a coda to the main part
of the poem, it is a fitting end because it reflects
the overall theme of the canto, which is a long
reflection on time and change, the impermanence
of everything that man creates. This theme was
particularly present in Byron’s mind when he vis-
ited Rome in May 1817, from where he took his
trip up the Alban Mount to view the Mediterra-
nean Sea. It is not surprising that after viewing
the ruins of ancient Rome he should have been
prompted to perceive the ocean as a symbol of the
eternal in life, the one thing that does not change,
though human empires come and go.
Rome was an essential destination for those
young eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English
aristocrats who furthered their education by taking
the Grand Tour of Europe. The city abounded in
the ruins of an ancient civilization, the most awe-
inspiring of which was the Coliseum, which Byron
describes in Canto IV as ‘‘this vast and wondrous
monument’’ (stanza CXXVIII), a ‘‘long-explored
but still exhaustless mine / Of contemplation’’
(stanza CXXIX). The Coliseum was built in the
late-first century A.D. It could accommodate
fifty thousand spectators and was the place where
the Romans held their gladiatorial contests, on
which Byron reflects in stanzas CXL to CXLII.
The ruins of the Coliseum, once a symbol of the
might of Rome, spread over six acres. Visiting the
city not too long after Byron, English writerChilde Harold’s Pilgrimage