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The most famous of Byron's poems is Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. The poem was created in parts. Her first two songs were written during Byron's travels to Portugal, Spain, Albania, Greece (1809-1811). The third canto is on the shores of Lake Geneva after the final departure from England (1816), the fourth canto was completed already in Italy in 1817.

All four songs are united by one hero. The image of Childe Harold entered world literature as the image of a completely new hero, whom literature has not yet known. It embodies the most characteristic features of the enlightened part of the younger generation of the era of romanticism. Byron himself stated that he wanted to show his hero "as he is" at this time and in this reality, although "it would be nicer and probably easier to portray a more attractive face."

Who is the "pilgrim" Childe Harold? Already at the beginning of the poem, the author introduces his hero:

A young man lived in Albion. He devoted his age only to idle entertainment In an insane thirst for joy and neglect ...

This is the offspring of an ancient and once glorious family (Childe is the old name for a young man of the noble class). It would seem that he should be satisfied with life and happy. But unexpectedly for himself, "in the prime of life in May" he falls ill with a "strange" disease:

Satiety spoke in him, A fatal disease of the mind and heart, And it seemed vile all around: Prison - homeland, grave - fatherly home ...

Harold rushes to foreign, unknown to him lands, he longs for changes, dangers, storms, adventure - whatever, just to get away from what he is sick of:

Inheritance, home, family estates, Lovely ladies, whose laughter he loved so much ... He exchanged for winds and fogs, For the roar of southern waves and barbaric countries.

The new world, new countries are gradually opening his eyes to a different life, full of suffering and calamity and so far from his former social life. In Spain, Harold is no longer the secular dandy as he was described at the beginning of the poem. The great drama of the Spanish people, forced to choose between "submission or the grave," fills them with anxiety and hardens their hearts. At the end of the first song, it is a gloomy man, disillusioned with the world. He is burdened by the whole way of life of an aristocratic society, he does not find meaning either in the earthly or in the afterlife, he rushes about and suffers. Neither English nor European literature has ever known such a hero.

However, already in the second chapter, finding himself in the mountains of Albania, Harold, although still "alien, careless", but already succumbed to the beneficial influence of the majestic nature of this country and its people - the proud, brave and freedom-loving Albanian highlanders. The hero is increasingly showing responsiveness, spiritual nobility, less and less dissatisfaction and melancholy. The soul of the misanthrope Harold begins, as it were, to recover.

After Albania and Greece, Harold returns to his homeland and once again plunges into the "whirlwind of secular fashion", into the "flea market, where vanity boils". He again begins to be haunted by the desire to escape from this world of empty vanity and aristocratic arrogance. But now "his goal is ... more worthy than then." Now he knows for sure that "among the desert mountains are his friends." And he "again takes the staff of the pilgrim" ... Material from the site

From the moment Childe Harold's Pilgrimage appeared in print, readers identified the hero of the poem with the author himself, although Byron strongly objected to this, insisting that the hero was fictional. Indeed, the author and his hero have a lot in common, even in their biography. However, Byron's spirituality is immeasurably richer and more complex than the character he created. And nevertheless, it was not possible to draw the "line" desired by the poet between him and his hero, and in the fourth song of the poem Childe Harold is no longer mentioned at all. “In the last song, the pilgrim appears less frequently than in the previous ones, and therefore he is less separable from the author, who speaks here on his own behalf,” admitted Byron.

Childe Harold is a sincere, deep, albeit very contradictory person who has become disillusioned with the "light", in his aristocratic environment, runs away from it, passionately searches for new ideals. This image soon became the embodiment of the "Byronic" hero in the literature of many European countries during the era of romanticism.

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On this page material on topics:

  • how the character of Byron's hero is revealed
  • characterization of harold in the first song
  • quotes for characterizing harold
  • characteristics of the protagonist Childe Harold
  • how the poem Childe Harold's pilgrimage was created

Rik writing – 1809-1818

Poemi theme - nationally-vis-à-vis the struggle of the European peoples. Likewise, the author has opened those patriotism, blame the world.

To him, the heroes of the first song "Childe Harold's Palomine" become a hero - a fighter for the national freedom of the peoples of Spain, Greece and Albania.

The song "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" has become a new stage in creativity. Uni through the inner light of the character and the author, the heroes of old and new hours, and tragic problems and problems of happiness are revealed. Appreciating the "high" style, appealing to the abstract and presenting images, Byron put on such a particularly sensitive tone that a lot of people thought to look like a part of an all-sacred process.

We eat the form of a podorozhniy schoden, which can be written in two individuals: the author himself and the hero.The hero is eating the song of the first rows of the biographical character of the old man, the author is the last one, and before the end we eat the distance between them.

The pragmatic perception of people, the dissatisfaction with the action, the magic of one's spiritual power and strength - these are the goals of Childe Harold's pilgrimage, like those who were close to Byron himself.

Harold's rosary and troubles do not lie in his wry vanity, family conflicts, unhappy cohannes and special motives, as I play a role in the middle of literature. The hero of Byron does not disdain to struggle with suspense, but his inertness and watching is not a position of passivity. The head of rice is Childe Harold as an artistic image - its incompleteness, the hero of the cry is to imagine the moment of awakening the self-consciousness of people in the new hour, as to begin to see on their own in the light, that I think of the inheritance of the historical tragedy

Byron put nutrition about the causes of suspicious vadas, national fallout, contemplated on the rubbing and mysteriousness of the historical process, altogether unhappy with himself and over the meaning of his creativity.

The image of Childe Harold in the literature is like the image of a new hero, whom the literature did not know before. At the new level of interest in the nature of rice, a part of the younger generation, add romanticism. Byron himself, declaring that he wanted to show his hero "like that, like it is," now and in the dawn of reality, I wish "I’ll take it, singsong, it’s easier to imagine a more attractive person."

Who is this "pilgrim" Childe Harold?

“There was a young man living in Albion. Your century

He devoted only to idle entertainment

In an insane thirst for joy and neg ... "

Harold is the site of the old and old family (Childe is the old-time naming of the noble camp). Zdavalosya b, vіn mav buti of gratification of lives and happiness. Ale zenatska, "at the root of the living grass", having zeneduzhv "wondrous" ailment:

"Satedness spoke in him,

A fatal disease of the mind and heart,

And everything seemed disgusting around:

Prison - homeland, grave - father's house ... "

Harold, like Byron himself, to wander in a strange, unseen land, win zhada zmin, nebezpek, drill, fit - whatever is good, abi drink from the one that was shabby:

"Inheritance, home, family estates

Lovely ladies, whose laughter he loved so much ...

He traded for winds and fogs

To the roar of the southern waves and barbaric countries. "

Seeing to yourself such a person who was born with a “glorious glory” and having lost the hope of seeing me, I’m a god of strength, but I’m dreaming in him, Harold has nineteen rockies in his own mind in the world I could never have forgotten about it. Znevira roz'ydaє yogo soul and transfer of the hero, de b іn not buv, "and in the heart of the mismat is not calm."

Harold's position is totally ironic, as behind the masks of nobility, I see a drib'yazkovy corliness, and behind the lofty words - I am emptying sense, which has become a chronic ailment of the era, if I was absorbed by the sight of a change of heart. In Spain, passing through the fields of "mournful glory", I have lost the memory of the Napoleon's opiate, to visit Greece, who are "for the past to wander the blue of Freedom," dear land, experiencing only slightly more difficult for the new one - baiduzhism.

New light, new land is acting to show your eyes on your life, outside the country and the world and then from far away from your colorful life. In Spain, Harold is no longer the same svitsky dendi, as we eat descriptions on the cob. Great is the drama of the Hispanic people, zealous to vibrate with "cover with a grave", reminiscent of a trivial rose, and an evil heart. For example, pershoi pisni - the tse of a frown, anger at the sight of a lyudin. Yogo obtyazhu all manner of life of the aristocratic suspension, I don’t know the wickedness in life, I don’t know the wickedness and the enchantments, and I’m invisibly awful. Such a hero, neither English nor vzagal, European literature has never known.

However, the other song, having settled down in the mountains of Albania, Harold, hoch, like and earlier, “without a bazhan, without turbots,” ale to the friendly inflow of the great nature of the country and the people - the proud, willing Albanian mountaineers. The hero of the dedal often has a chuynist, generous nobility, and a little less discontent with tightness. The soul of misanthrope Harold has begun nibi viduhuvati. Ale tse of Oman. It is necessary to have a lot of sorrow and take away in your soul.

Pislya Albania y Gretsiya Harold to turn to Batkivshchyna and zanyuyutsya at the "vikhor svitskoy modi", at the "tovkuchku hall, de suєta boil." For the first time, I will start by sending the message to the great saint marnoti, and wishing my friend a friend: Belgium, Nimechchina, Switzerland, Italy ...

At the moment when the friend of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" came out, the readers depicted the hero from the author himself; It is true that the author of that hero is even more sophisticated than the biography. However, the spiritual image of Byron himself, like the image of the author of the song "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", is imperceptibly rich and foldable, not the image of the character he has created. already in the middle of going to ten. “In the last picture, the pilgrim appears to be older, lower at the front, and because of that, it’s the author’s view of the author, so it’s worth talking about it in a special way,” Byron said.

Childe Harold is a talented, gliboka, whoever is even more articulate than a man, who is enchanting with his aristocratic middle-class, living all over the place, fiercely sounding new ideals. The whole image has become a non-bargaining basis for the "Byron" hero in the literature of the Bagatokh region of Europe in the era of romanticism.

The hero of Byron sees "the sorrow of light", for that the burning of life, they can force, prikhovani in people, not to think of a fruitful stampede. Harold Palko і іѕ thаt іn thе reality, аlе tο oppress yo. I have risen against all light, having the right to internal and individual freedom, in front of the freedom of the senses.

Poema Byron is a whole artistic tvir, in a real world and a self-portrait from a vygadkoyu. A good chance to find a place to see the character Childe Harold and we sing along with the head idea. It is also not a vague name for the creator to take revenge on the path of the hero, on his behavior and to bring the position to that middle, in which age and temptations are the first hour of life. The reader is overtaken analytically, by the image of Childe Harold, the author himself is all partly, more and more easy and more light-hearted, as an analyst, as a commentator, who appreciates the role of the hero... The first order of two characters in front of us opens up one more ruin the power of the serpent to create: the author has made the objective reality of Europe, which appears in a contrasting image, in contrast to the glorious past that hateful passion, like, on the author's thought, I was remixed... We eat such a Trisharov composition of that lyric-epic nature, a sparse image of the author in it, either to get angry with the new light, or to put on a prototype of the reality. The first smut in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

Byron's talk about Childe Harold's "pilgrimage" was transformed into a simple document of the era of one of the most beautiful stories in the history of romanticism.


The character of Childe Harold is representative of the vast literary type defined by the term "Byronic hero." Comparing Childe Harold with other characters in Byron's works: Giaur, Corsair, Cain, Manfred, one can distinguish the characteristic features of this literary type. The "Byronic hero" was early fed up with life, he was seized by the deepest melancholy, "a disease of the mind." He broke with the circle of friends that disappointed him, got used to loneliness. "Byronic hero" hates

hypocrisy, which has become the norm in the society around him, breaking with which he becomes uncompromising. Striving for independence from society, he breaks all the threads that connect with him, for himself allowing only one connection - love. Generalized features of the "Byronic hero" are inherent in Childe Harold. At the beginning of the work, the author portrays his hero almost satirically: “Harold is equally alien to honor and shame”, “a loafer corrupted by laziness”:

A young man lived in Albion. He devoted his age only to idle amusements,

In an insane thirst for joys and negligence without disdaining ugly,

Soul devoted to base temptations,

But equally alien to honor and shame,

He loved the diverse in the world,

Alas! Only a short series of connections Yes drinking companions a cheerful horde.

However, when Childe Harold, by the age of 19, is satiated with secular life, acquires the ability to critically look at the falsity that reigns in the world where he lived, when the hero “seemed disgusting all around: the prison is the homeland, the grave is the father’s house,” then he becomes interesting to the poet ... And now, having broken with the hypocritical and depraved secular society, Childe Harold moves away from him, leaves England - this is his position in the fight against evil. Childe Harold visits Portugal and Spain, then travels by sea. Sailing past the islands, where, as the myth says, the nymph Calypso lived, capable of charming anyone, Childe Harold recalls a certain Florence, who tried to charm his heart, but she, unlike Calypso, failed to achieve her goal.

Ch. G. finds himself in the mountains of Albania, among the hospitable and proud Albanians, not spoiled by secular morals, some calmness and peace of mind. He compared them with those people whom he knew in England, the Albanians did not irritate him: "they did not insult the taste of their movement, and there was no vulgarity of stupidity in everything that he saw in front of him."

Having visited Greece, Childe Harold returns to England, but then leaves her again and goes to Germany, but Childe Harold's travels have no other purpose than flight from his homeland, he does not take part in historical events and the struggle of the peoples of the countries visited. This is the main difference between Childe Harold and the second hero of the poem - the author.

Glossary:

- Childe Harold characteristic

- quotation characteristics of Childe Harold

- Harold's quotation on the first chapter of Byron

- characteristic of Childe Harold according to plan

- Childe Harold Byronic Hero


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And life-denying sadness Gloomy cold features breathed.

D. Byron

The poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is written in the form of a traveler's lyrical diary.

The journey of the hero and the author has not only cognitive significance - each country is depicted by the poet in his personal perception. He admires nature, people, art, but at the same time, as if unintentionally, he finds himself in the hottest spots of Europe, in those countries where the revolutionary and people's liberation war was waged - in Spain, Albania, Greece. The storms of the political struggle of the beginning of the century burst into the pages of the poem, and the poem acquires an acute political and satirical sound. Thus, Byron's romanticism is extraordinary closely related to modernity, saturated with its problems.

Childe Harold is a young man of noble birth. But Byron calls the hero only by his name, thereby emphasizing both his vitality and the typicality of his new social character.

Childe Harold's journey was made for personal reasons: he "had no enmity towards society." The journey should, according to the hero, save him from communicating with the familiar, boring and annoying world, where there is no peace, joy, self-satisfaction.

Harold's motives for wandering are fatigue, satiety, tiredness of the world, dissatisfaction with himself. Under the influence of new impressions from historically significant events, the hero's conscience awakens: "he curses the vices of violent years, he is ashamed of wasted youth." But familiarization with the real concerns of the world, even if only morally, does not make Harold's life more joyful, because very bitter truths connected with the life of many nations are revealed to him: "And the gaze that has seen the light of truth is becoming darker and darker."

Sadness, loneliness, mental confusion are born as if from within. Harold's heartfelt dissatisfaction is not caused by any real reason: it arises before the impressions of the vast world give the hero true reasons for grief.

The tragic doom of good efforts is the root cause of Byron's grief. Unlike his hero Childe Harold, Byron is by no means a passive contemplator of world tragedy. We see the world through the eyes of a hero and a poet.

The general theme of the poem is the tragedy of post-revolutionary Europe, whose liberation impulse culminated in the reign of tyranny. Byron's poem captured the process of the enslavement of peoples. However, the spirit of freedom, which so recently inspired humanity, did not completely fade away. He still lives in the heroic struggle of the Spanish people against the foreign conquerors of their homeland or in the civic virtues of the harsh rebellious Albanians. And yet persecuted freedom is increasingly pushed aside into the realm of traditions, memories, legends. In Greece, where democracy once flourished, only one historical tradition is a refuge of freedom, and the present Greek, a frightened and obedient slave, no longer resembles a free citizen of Ancient Hellas (“And humbled under Turkish whips, Greece stretched out, trampled into the mud”). In a world bound by chains, only nature is free, and its lush, joyful flowering is a contrast to the cruelty and anger reigning in human society ("Let the genius die, liberty died, eternal nature is beautiful and bright"). And nevertheless, the poet, contemplating this sad spectacle of the defeat of freedom, does not lose faith in the possibility of its revival. All powerful energy is aimed at awakening the fading revolutionary spirit. Throughout the entire poem, it sounds like a call to rebellion, to fight tyranny ("O Greece, rise up to fight!").

Extensive reasoning turns into an author's monologue, in which the fate and movements of Childe Harold's soul are presented only in episodes, significant, but secondary.

Byron's hero is outside of society, he cannot come to terms with society and does not want to seek the use of his strengths and abilities in its reconstruction and improvement: at least at this stage, the author leaves Childe Harold.

The poet took the hero's romantic loneliness as a protest against the norms and rules of life in his circle, with which Byron himself was forced to break, but at the same time Childe Harold's egocentrism and life isolation were ultimately the object of criticism of the poet.

Lesson topic:Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Disappointment and loneliness of the hero

The purpose of the lesson:to give a general description of the plot, composition and genre of the poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"; show the tragedy of the hero's loneliness, the reason for his break with his homeland; form an idea of \u200b\u200ba romantic hero; improve the skills of analyzing the lyric-epic poem; help broaden the horizons of students

During the classes


  1. Organizing time

  2. Updating the basic knowledge of students
Frontal survey of students:

  • historical background of the emergence of romanticism in Europe and Russia

  • what is romanticism? two directions of romanticism

  • defining signs of romanticism

  • features of a romantic hero

  • what is romantic duality?

  • name genres of romanticism

  • name the representatives of romanticism in literature

  • what are the literary works of romanticism

  • what did you learn about Byron?

  • the most famous poem of Byron?

  1. Announcement of the topic and purpose of the lesson

  2. Working on the topic of the lesson

  1. Teacher's introduction
Pilgrimage (from lat.palma - palm tree) - the pilgrimage of believers to worship holy places (for Christians - to Jerusalem and Rome, among Muslims - to Mecca). Named according to the custom of Christian pilgrims to bring a palm branch from Palestine.

The title of the poem is ironic: Harold leaves his homeland not for a religious purpose, but in order to get rid of disappointment.

Childe is the title of a young nobleman who has not yet been knighted.
The hero of the poem is a disillusioned, satiated with life, a proud loner, an individualist who opposed himself to society. Harold, having passed the "labyrinth of vices", tasted the "horror of satiety", his native land awakened disgust in him.

Not wanting to change anything either in himself or in society, he leaves him. Longing makes him flee civilization.

Signs of the Byronic hero:


  • unusual fate;

  • bright, independent character;

  • discord with society and yourself.

  1. Class Quote Project
No English poet of the 19th century made such a deep impression on his contemporaries as Byron. His poems were eagerly read, memorized, quoted and vigorously discussed. His heroes were captivated by their uniqueness, courage, mystery, and everyone looked in them for similarities with the author himself. After the publication of the poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", he really became the "ruler of thoughts" of his generation, not only in his homeland, but even more abroad. In Russia, this poem was read by Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Baratynsky.

The task: Read excerpts from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, pick one you think is the most impressive (see appendix).

Quotes are distributed to each desk. Students read the quotes and choose one (the most impressive), write the number on a piece of paper (put a bird in the table). At the end of the work, we select the quote of the day and give reasons for our choice.


  1. Writing in workbooks
Composition of the work :

SongI - Harold's journey across Portugal and Spain (thinking about wars in general, about wars of liberation).

SongII - a visit by the hero to Albania and Greece (an appeal to the Greek people to start the liberation struggle).

SongIII - a trip to Belgium (thinking about the revolution in France).

SongIV travel across Italy.


  1. Working on the content of the SongI (verses 1-13) - drawing up a table

what do we learn about Harold?

stanza 2

A young man lived in Albion. Your century

He devoted only to idle entertainment,

In an insane thirst for joy and neg

By debauchery, not disdaining ugly,

Soul devoted to base temptations,

But equally alien to honor and shame,

He loved the diverse in the world,

Alas! only short connections

Yes, drinking companions a cheerful horde.


how was his life by the age of 19?

(stanza 4)

Entering its nineteenth year,

Like a moth, he frolicked, fluttering,

Didn't think that the day would pass -

And the night darkness will blow cold.

But suddenly, in the prime of life in May,

Satedness spoke in him,

A fatal disease of the mind and heart,

And everything around seemed disgusting:

The homeland is the prison, the father's house is the grave.


his attitude to love?

(stanza 5)

He did not know conscience strict reproaches

And blindly walked the path of passions.

Loved one - deceived many with love,

Loved - and did not call her his.


his relationship to balls?

(stanza 8)

But often in splendor, in the noise of a crowded hall

Harold's face was anguished.


loneliness of the hero

(stanza 9)

And he was alone in the world. At least many

He generously watered at his table,

He knew them, hangers-on of the poor,

Friends for an hour - he knew the price of them.


why is he going to wander?

(stanza 7)

And in a thirst for new places, Harold raced off,

Leaving your venerable old home ...


what did you exchange for?

(stanza 11)

All that luxury pleases the revelry,

He traded for winds and fogs

To the roar of the southern waves and barbaric countries.


what does he regret leaving home?

(verse 13, near the end of the verse)

I do not regret anything in the past

The stormy path is not terrible,

But it's a pity that, leaving the father's house,

I have no one to breathe for.

I trust the wind and the wave

I'm alone in the world.

Who can remember me

Who could I remember?


  • summarize the above and tell me, what is the reason for the hero's disappointment and melancholy, his break with his homeland?

  • this break with society speaks of the belonging of the work to which literary direction?

  • prepare an oral story about Harold using the materials on the table

  1. Summarizing. Final words of the teacher
A break with society is a characteristic feature of the romantic hero. The conflict of the personality with the environment (even more - with the world) was supposed to emphasize, reveal, on the one hand, the hero's superiority over other people, and on the other, the severity of loneliness, which the world despised by him condemns and which he chooses for himself. Childe Harold has become a household name for the romantic hero - a young man who is disappointed, dissatisfied and alone. He doesn't believe in sublime feelings or affection; in his opinion, there is neither true love nor true friendship. Childe Harold's frustration stems from his clash with society.

In the first two songs, we see the hero in Portugal, Spain, Albania and Greece - in the countries that Byron visited. Childe Harold longs for personal freedom and, not finding it in the surrounding world of "wealth and miserable poverty," dreams of loneliness. He avoids people, goes far into the mountains, listens to the lapping of the sea wave, he is delighted by the raging elements. Only ordinary people, courageous and freedom-loving, attract Childe Harold to themselves.

Childe Harold is not satisfied with life, but his protest is passive: he reflects on the reasons for his dissatisfaction, but does not seek to intervene in life, to take part in the liberation struggle.


  1. Lesson summary

Appendix to the project "Quote of the Day" (excerpts from the poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage")