There is something almost cinematic in the scale of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. He connects his discontent with the post-Napoleonic War monarchy with a number of past regimes which he deems despotic. There is something slightly contradictory in Byron’s living these fierce anti-governmental protestations through Harold. Not necessarily his complaints about tyranny, but his generalized accusation about nations that are responsible for bringing about the end of despotic institutions. When he says “Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit/And foam in fetters;- but is Earth more free?/ Did nations combat to make One submit;/ Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty?” and “Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we/ Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze/ And servile knees to thrones? No; prove before ye praise!” it is to say that one evil government has been toppled by another that is not necessarily any more just.

In that case, it seems odd that he should have such a reputation for having participated in revolutionary movements. It’s an inevitable pattern- and one that he seems quite aware of- that force is often required to defeat force, and that the defeat of one begets the rise of another.

The Third Canto in particular seems to be a relentless list of seemingly triumphant conflicts which were in actuality bitter evils, or pretty nature settings which have been besmirched by bodies and ichor: “Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,/ Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay,/ The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,/ The morn the marshaling in arms,- the day/ Battles magnificently-stern array!/ The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent/ The earth is cover’d thick with other clay”.

It is hard to believe that some part of Byron’s imagination wasn’t captured romantically by the scale and grandeur of battle and overthrow, whatever the loss and violence and ultimate consequence. Especially with lines like “While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;/ When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall:/ And when Rome falls- the World.” Perhaps revolution was a guilty pleasure for Byron, one he felt the need to check his enthusiasm for with lengthy musings on the pitfalls of such an enthusiasm.