Anti-hero Worship: The Emergence of the “Byronic hero” Archetype in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Anti-hero Worship:The Emergence of the "Byronic hero" Archetype in the Nineteenth Century Cora Palfy (bio) Introduction The works of poet Lord Byron were a tour de force over the course of the nineteenth century—from the serial release of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), ever-famous poetry like Don Juan (1819), and his dramatic stage works, such as Manfred (1817), Byron can be noted as one of the most highly influential authors and artists of his time.1 Though Byronic style and traits were adopted by a variety of authors and poets throughout Europe, Byron's influence stretched beyond the literary. Berlioz, Brahms, Schumann, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, and other nineteenth-century composers also adopted Byronic plots or narrative elements and incorporated them into musical works.2 Aside from the polemical writing style and sensational authorial persona that mark his work as distinct, Byron also introduced a unique character type, the "Byronic hero." This novel hero manipulated standard behaviors and plot outcomes associated with earlier conceptions [End Page 161] of the "hero" archetype, creating an entirely new standard character that revolutionized literature and art.3 The archetypical twists necessary to produce a Byronic hero provide a prime opportunity to investigate Byron's influence on musical composition during the mid-nineteenth century. If the Byronic hero was initially a manipulation of standard narrative expectations and character types, how did composers adapt stock patterns and manipulate listener expectations in order to communicate a musical Byronic hero? This paper provides three case studies that demonstrate recurrent patterns of topical troping in Byronic music. My analyses reveal that pieces, such as Schumann's Manfred Overture, Op. 115, Tchaikovsky's "Manfred" Symphony, Op. 58, I, and Berlioz's Harold en Italie, Op. 16, I all contain military and ombra topics, formal deformations, and obsessively reiterated thematic gestures. The coalescence of these elements communicates the impression of the lovelorn, obsessive, and static Byronic hero. The presence of these features calls into question the representation and variety of musical heroes in the nineteenth century and the way in which topics can be manipulated to convey nuanced, specific character types. Heroism and its Adaptations in Music and Literature The "hero" archetype has been present in literature since the earliest mythologies. Psychoanalyst and ethnographer Joseph Campbell has noted that hero mythology is a cultural universal and that heroic journeys have been a part of these mythologies as symbolic representations of human psychological and biological development.4 Campbell's heroic "monomyth" articulates a common framework underlying the hero's journey—the hero undergoes a cycle of separation, initiation, and return.5 Separation entails both the introduction of a hero and his departure from home, initiation includes the hero's trials and tribulations, and finally, the hero victoriously returns with transcendent, enlightened knowledge.6 Campbell defines the hero thus, "The hero, therefore, is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and [End Page 162] local historical limitations to the generally valid, normal human forms."7 Campbell's ideas of an individuated hero symbolically vanquishing the troubles of his era correspond well with the prominent traits of the many varieties of hero available in contemporary literature and film. Campbell's definition of hero in the universal monomyth, however, leaves much room for refinement and growth in these various genres. The diverse varieties of hero extant today stem from an explosion in and evolution of heroic literary types in the eighteenth century. Peter Thorslev's study on the Byronic hero surveys pre-Romantic and early Romantic distinctions between distinct hero types, each of which feeds into Byron's later archetype.8 Thorslev details three eighteenth-century hero types, the "Child of Nature, the Hero of Sensibility, and the Gothic Villain" and four Romantic hero types, the "Noble Outlaw… the Faust-figure, Cain and the Wandering Jew, and Satan-Prometheus."9 Each of these character types shares certain features, such as an understanding of a higher moral,10 noble spirit or elevated social role, and the role of accomplishing action or resolving conflicts throughout a plot. These peremptory heroic types laid the groundwork for the later Byronic hero. This hero, which today might...