The claim made here is that the self has the
attributes of and is equivalent to the setting. The
internal is exteriorised, the external interiorised.
There is a constant shifting of the balance within
this parity, however. The world might be as per-
ishable as flesh but it is ‘at our feet’ (78)—and the
soaring spirit seems to observe it from above
with a sense of superiority. At other times, the
mind is ‘Expanded by the genius of the spot’
(155), and our grasp of ‘grandeur’ can only
be ‘piecemeal’ and ‘gradual’ (157, 158). Such
shifting balances within equivalences every-
where characterise the canto, and do not come
to rest in a single dominant viewpoint. The only
constant is the very fact of conjunction—‘and’
merges binary oppositions into a discourse of
coexistence.
As with objectivity and subjectivity—actuality
and imagination—so withpast and present. In
Peter Manning’s words, ‘Byron replaces the con-
ception of the past as essentially a static compara-
tive framework to be imitated, whether respectfully
or in parody, by a past that is directly to be re-
experienced.’ The process of coming into contact
with what has gone before and reviving it in one’s
mind can provoke contradictory emotions even
within a single experience: a feeling of endearment
and mourning for the ‘crush’d relics of [... ]
vanish’d might’ (45), for instance, and a very differ-
ent sense of continuity—the ancient world was a
site of barbarism, tyranny and destruction very
like the present. Things are different but do not
change. The difference between past and present is
both asserted and blurred to the point of vanishing
from sight.
The blurring of different times is, in stanza
144, linked to the recurring cycles in nature. The
‘rising moon’ and the twinkling stars are caught
in ‘the loops of Time’ and form a ‘magic circle’
that revives the heroes of the past. The linear
progress of time, whether personal and towards
the next world promised by religion or public
and towards a bright future of political utopia,
is certainly not the underlying concept ofChilde
Harold IV.Freedom was the motto of the age
but the disillusionment brought about by the
aftermath of events in France gave a double
perspective on human values and political pref-
erences. The nominated contemporary ‘cham-
pion of freedom’ had turned into a tyrant, like
others before him. Freedom had evolved into an
abstract ideal: ‘See / What crimes it costs to be a
moment free’ (85). With all the recent changes in
the spheres of knowledge, religion and society,
there is no secure standpoint for evaluating right
and wrong. Political partisanship multiplies
demagogues. The formation of new class divi-
sions and the emergence of national conscious-
nesses are processes taking place at about the
same time and in many ways contradicting
each other. Truth is unattainable ‘opinion [is]
an omnipotence’ and ‘right and wrong are acci-
dents’ (93). Thus, one of the striking expressions
of Byronic ambivalence is moral relativity,
which Peacock probably had in mind when he
referred to the poem as ‘‘‘poisoning’’ of the
‘‘mind’’ of the ‘‘reading public’’’
With no firm ground from which to judge
the world, with ideals such as freedom seemingly
beyond accomplishment, the speaker ofChilde
Harold IV expresses a fatalistic attitude not
only towards phenomena of the mind but also
towards the course of history:
There is the moral of all human tales;
Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,
First Freedom, and then Glory—when
that fails,
Wealth, vice, corruption,—barbarism
at last.
And History, with all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page. (108)
These lines convey a cyclic theory of history,
in the manner of Vico with his cycles of heroic and
classical periods and declines into new barbarism.
Here we can agree with Philip Shaw, who sees
Byron ‘predisposed to representations of politics
that emphasize its violent and tragic aspects’, and
suggest that, as a consequence, for Byron ‘the
realization of a progressive alternative seems
remote’. Whether Vico’s ideas had any effect on
Byron or not, Gibbon’s view certainly did. In
spite of his appreciation of the past, or possibly
because of it, the historian of Rome ‘finds the
motive force’ of all history in ‘human irrationality
itself’. Byron’s attitude to the past in these lines
seems to pay tribute to the scepticism of the eight-
eenth century, to which we can add Voltaire’s
conviction that the past can never be known as
it actually happened. Byron thought the French-
man ‘delightful’, even if ‘dreadfully inaccurate’,
and bought the 92-volume edition of his works.
Voltaire’s most famous and widely-read work,
Candide,is an attack on metaphysical optimism
and its main character rejects absolute truths as
useless. Byron readily identified withCandide,
and a fair portion ofChilde Harold IVis tunedChilde Harold’s Pilgrimage