Rebellion In Despair

Byron is the most important representative of romantic literature in the 19th century, and the research on him has been done quite thoroughly at home and abroad. However, among these different kinds of research results, there is not enough attention paid to the relations between Byron and the Christian culture. Especially at home, limited by many kinds of factors, such as politics, history, cultural tradition and so on, research on this aspect is even more deficient. Under such a background, the author makes a brief summary of the research results at home and abroad, and attempts to make a general research on the relations between Byron and Christian culture by studying Byron's works.The paper is composed of three parts: the introduction, the text and the epilogue. First, the introduction briefly introduces the present situation of research on Byron at home and abroad. The author thinks that the research on the relations between Byron and Christian culture is very weak both at home and abroad, but there do exist some close relations between Byron and Christianity. Next, the paper elaborates the possibility and significance of this study. Last, the relationship between the writer and the religious is discussed, and the four aspects which this paper focuses on are pointed out in view of the actual situation of studies on Byron.The text includes three sections as follows:The first chapter mainly studies what Byron has inherited from Christian culture. Firstly, the author simply limits the definition of"inherit"in this paper, and then pays great attention to review some specific aspects of Byron's poems, such as the use for reference to the content of the Holy Bible, the understanding of Christian history, the church function, the ceremony, the internal identification with religious doctrine and so on. These reviews intend to indicate that although Byron is a rebel to the Christian culture he has not yet gotten rid of its subtle influence.The second chapter mainly reviews the relations between Byron and Christian culture from the perspective of Byron's rebellion to, and elaborates in turn from Byron's rebel utilization of the content of the Holy Bible, his animadvert on the church, the priest and the Christian, his disapproval to the Christian doctrine and so on. Finally the author draws the conclusion that Byron's poems always try to refute and taunt on the contents concerning the religious doctrines. In fact, this exactly indicates his superstition and inner fear. In other words, Byron discovers that he himself has accepted...