Aargh.

I do not like Twilight for rather a stupid and specific reason, to be honest. The Amateur Historian wishes desperately to say that her initial, gut-reaction of dislike arose from feminist principles, an admiration for the subtleties and satires of Jane Austen over the sentimentality Brontes, a dislike of melodrama or something of sort, but it really started because the person who introduced Twilight to the Amateur Historian said Edward was a "Byronic hero."

Well, no, that’s not quite how it works. The Byronic hero stemmed from the Romantic and Gothic adulation of Milton’s Paradise Lost, in particular for his characterization of Satan  as a personnage of “flawed grandeur”—a magnificent and powerful person destroyed through their hamartia, or tragic flaw (hamartia stemming from Aristotle's Ars Poetica).The one to perfect this beloved staple of nineteenth century fiction was, of course, Lord Byron, who drew from his own self-myth and from the trajectory of Napoleon, whom Byron saw as a brilliant, dark and mysterious leader who just also happened to be the author of his own downfall. Byron wrote these young, oddly charming, prematurely-tainted-by-sin, trapped-by-the-constraints-of-memory-and-society protagonists in Childe Harold, The Corsair, Lara, and Manfred.  Though I suppose Edward does reflect, the erie, supernatural seducer of Lady Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon, how is Edward a) a fascinating psychological portrait, b) lead into his own destruction by free choice and a tragic flaw, or c) representative of Byron, who, well…

For the last point, have these macros, Gentle Readers:

It's enough to make one want to join George Takei's Star Alliance.

Beau Brummel: This Charming Man

Beau Brummel was almost The Celebrity of the early Regency period, even though, to the Amateur Historian's mind, his claim to fame was really only getting dressed in the morning. Granted, as Queen of Fashion or any biography will tell you, clothing was of significant symbolic importance during said time-period. Wear knee-breeches (culottes, in French) and you would be considered a part of the repressive Ancien Regime, and pretty much an open target to the sans-culottes who disapprove of your fashion choices. Wear a gaulle, and alternately be accused of immorality or be a paragon of Roussean simplicity. Wear a fox-tail in your hat to show your Whiggish leanings and support for Charles James Fox! I suppose Brummel was sort of the first hipster, making ironic detachment and cool, and a look of careless (but cultivated) elegance the way to go.

The film stars the amazing-in-period-costume James Purefoy, who seems to be contractually obligated by the BBC to end his roles in a dazed, drunken stupor while depressed, abandoned and crying. (Marc Antony, why did it have to end the way it did?). The man is gorgeous in a cravat and plays Beau Brummel with an understated charm and quiet friendliness. He is the epitome of a dandy. Hugh Bonneville plays a sadly realistic Prince Regent, and Matthew Rhys plays a very pretty Lord Byron. I have absolutely no complaints with the costumes, which were drool-worthy, or the sets, which were equally fantastic. I do, however, have some quibbles with the plot.

The biopic is a tragedy, wherein the viewer believes Brummel will win and then Brummel pretty much commits social suicide, and James Purefoy is left brokenly (and, the Amateur Historian must admit, beautifully) sobbing all by himself. To be more specific, Brummel starts out as biffles with the Prince Regent, to the point where the prince calls him over in the middle of the night to read Henry IV out loud. Brummel has to read Falstaff, whom he dubs, "Fat-staff", but gets to use his biffle status to spook his creditors into never collecting on his debt. Alas, however. The good times, symbolized by shaky, quasi-artistic shots that looked either like the camera or the cameraman was on speed, or that they had blown their budget on the totally fab costumes and were forced to use hand-held cameras, had to come to an end.

Brummel, while living the high-life, falls madly in love with Lord Byron, in an incredibly hot but historically dubious turn of events that alienates Beau from Prince George. Beau loses his reputation and his money, luck and friends, has an artistic flashback while watching's Sheridan's glorious School for Scandal, and then vanishes, leaving the credits to inform us that he fled to France. (To die in poverty, but they left that bit out. Considering what an angst fest the film because, with a tearful Brummel begging Byron to stay, and falling apart at the seams-- not literally, of course. Dandies don't let a little thing like total ruin affect their wardrobes-- the Amateur Historian did expect it. Seriously, one of the scenes was along the lines of:

Brummel: You were amazing in our historically inaccurate threesome with a courtesan named Julia, wherein she was the conduit for our socially unacceptable homoerotic passion for one another. I love you.

Byron: I love me too.

Brummel: Will you stay?

Byron: *poetic blather*

Brummel: Will you stay?

Byron: *poetic blather* Life is art, you are art in motion, Beau. You are art itself! That is why you are famous when you have contributed next to nothing to society. You are walking art.

Brummel: But will you stay?

Byron: I say, my half-sister's very pretty, isn't she?

Brummel: Will you stay, George?

Byron: ... let's see if we can start an orgy, eh? *wanders off*

Brummel: *tearfully* He won't stay.
Amateur Historian: NO DUH.)

The Amateur Historian's personal favorite part of the piece was the war to the death between the fops and the dandies. Two fops attempt to go head-to-head with Brummel on the street, at which point Brummel pummels them. Dandies, after all, do what they please whenever they please and look carelessly elegant while doing so. Though the Amateur Historian has a soft spot for fops (see The Scarlet Pimpernel as to why, and then tell me you don't love Sir Percy), it is amusing to see a bunch of them thumbing their noses at Brummel, who pioneered today's standard male dress-clothes in the form of a dark suit (with trousers), boots or black shoes, and a neat tie. Real men, you see, wore perfume, lace, high heels and rouge.

Now, what can we take from this film, aside from the fact that fops and dandies are mortal enemies and that Byron's love affairs just cannot be contained by such a silly thing as historical fact? The morals of the story seem to be: a. don't sleep with Lord Byron, b. don't call your biffle fat, and c. DON'T SLEEP WITH LORD BYRON. Seriously. You lose all your friends, fortune, and fame and flee to France to escape your creditors. Not a glamourous end, really.

The film itself is very glamorous, however, and has moments of wit (some from Brummel himself, some stolen from Oscar Wilde-- oh subtext, how the BBC doth love thee) in between the shaky good-times shots and the descent into wrist-gnawingly intense angst. As with Gothic, there are some lovely, tasteful scenes of a beautiful naked man and a nymphomanic Byron. However, unlike Gothic, there is a plot and actual logic to the story. It isn't the best period film I've ever seen, since I don't really enjoy maudlin pieces unless they are over-the-top and hilarious, but it is worth a rent for the costumes (and lack thereof. Oh James Purefoy! If Beau Brummel looked like you, no wonder people lined up to watch him dress each morning).

Gothic

... I ... don't quite know what to say about the movie, Gothic, so I shall stick with the facts.

Fact 1: The movie is about the summer of 1816, when Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley), Mary's half-sister Claire Clarmont and Lord Byron's doctor were all living by Lake Geneva. It is, in particular, about the night where they read ghost stories to one another, Byron suggested a ghost story writing competition and Mary Shelley began to write Frankenstein. Above, you can see an absolutely adorable Percy Shelley geeking out about Cornelius Agrippa and the metaphysical aspects of lightening, Lord Byron indulgently seducing Per... er, drying Percy Shelley's hair, and Mary Shelley looking freaked out, as she is the only sane woman amongst a bunch of drunken, extremely high and extremely excitable people.

Fact 2: Percy Shelley is absolutely gorgeous. One (or at least, the Amateur Historian) does not even question the purpose of the nude scene where Percy Shelley attempts to connect with the greater forces of the universe by drinking his weight in laudanum and then climbing onto the roof. One simply looks at Julian Sands's wet, naked body and ceases to question the script.

Fact 3: This movie was made in the 1980s. The soundtrack will remind you of it every five seconds.

Fact 4: The director, like Blackadder, thinks that a Romantic Poet is someone who wanders around Europe in a poofy shirt trying to get laid. This is certainly true of his Byron, who, alas, crosses from dangerous, sexy rogue into creepy sketchball who seems physically incapable of being in the same room with someone (and, on occasion, something) without at least attempting to seduce them. Odd notion of hospitality, but since his other remarkable acts as a host include trying to stab his doctor, biting Claire Clarmont's neck, and setting his shirt on fire, perhaps one ought to be grateful he only makes the attempt. Perhaps this Byron thinks pick-up lines are part of being polite.

Fact 5: After the first half-hour, resign yourself to the fact that all the main characters are so high they have probably broken through the ozone layer and are contributing to the ecological destruction of our planet, just as surely as the script has brought about the destruction of your willing suspension of disbelief. It is also, apparently, a very bad trip. Claire Clarmont, for example, goes feral and starts catching rats in her teeth. I Am Not Making This Up.

Fact 6: At certain points, the story is historically accurate. Mary Shelley was inspired by the ghost-story-writing competition, Claire Clarmont did get pregnant with Lord Byron's illegitimate daughter, Byron was into some kooky and kinky stuff (as in, his half-sister- Gothic goes there and goes there and then takes a month-long, drugg-addled vacation there), Shelley did hear parts of Coleridge's unfinished poem Christabel and then imagine seeing eyes in the middle of breasts, and Byron's doctor, John Polidori , did hear a vampire story Byron was thinking of writing and then took it, rewrote it to star Byron as a vampire, and then published it to great acclaim. Then, of course, the camera zooms in on a fish in a bird-bath or Byron's incredibly creepy collection of life-sized mechanical dolls and you have no idea what the hell is going on.

Fact 7: Be aware of your own tolerance for horror before renting this film. The Amateur Historian personally thought the creepiest bit of the film, where Mary Shelley goes utterly bonkers, was absolutely hilarious, but the friend sitting next to her had nightmares for a se'enight afterwards.

Fact 8: I don't think I can justify recommending this movie. It is so bizarre I still have difficulty forming an opinion about it. However, if you don't mind a creepy overindulgence in the macabre and drug-addled history, it's two hours of unexpectedly fascinating hilarity.

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk....

In the Georgian and Regency period of history people tended to drink a lot. As Byron wrote in his satiric masterpiece, Don Juan:

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.
Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
The best of life is but intoxication:
Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunk
The hopes of all men, and of every nation;
Without their sap, how branchless were the trunk
Of life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion:
But to return,—Get very drunk; and when
You wake with headache, you shall see what then.
Ring for your valet—bid him quickly bring
Some hock and soda-water, then you'll know
A pleasure worthy Xerxes the great king;
For not the bless'd sherbet, sublimed with snow,
Nor the first sparkle of the desert-spring,
Nor Burgundy in all its sunset glow,
After long travel, ennui, love, or slaughter,
Vie with that draught of hock and soda-water.

Byron added flair to his claret-quaffing by drinking out of the skull of a mediveal monk. Keats apparently liked to take a pinch of cayenne pepper and put it on the tip of his tongue before knocking back his claret. Though claret appears to be the standard drink of the Romantic poets (aside from laudanum, which pretty much everyone drunk, according to Thomas de Quincey), port was the drink of politicians.

When William Pitt the Younger was fourteen, the Pitt family doctor advised Pitt to treat his inherited gout with a bottle of port a day. Pitt apparently liked port a great deal because Pitt soon had a reputation of downing three bottles a day. He often had late night drinking parties with one of his ministers, Dundas, a fact which gave rise to a popular epigram:

Pitt: I cannot see the Speaker, Hal; can you?
Dundas: Not see the Speaker, Will? Why I see two!

Pitt, however, rarely appeared the worse for drink until the very end of his life, when his alcoholism significantly contributed to his state of constant ill-health. When he was younger, however, he did not have this problem. One day Pitt walked into the House of Commons, more full of port than a liquor store and promptly vomited in the antechamber. He then took the floor and perfectly delivered a speech. The Amateur Historian is not quite sure on what, but, considering Pitt had drunk enough to vomit in the antechamber, she is impressed that Pitt was even able to stay conscious, let alone make parlimentary orations.

How to Be a Romantic Poet, Part Six

Tip #5: Expire young, or, at least, die in an interesting fashion.

This is self-explanitory, but make sure you do not, like Wordsworth, accidentally live to old age and die at home of a common cold. If you must die of a common cold, take care to die amidst suitable theatrics, such as the Greek War for Independence. Once again, a wasting illness is an invaluable asset to any Romantic Poet, but you could also die whilst seeing visions and drawing pictures of your spouse's soul, or accidentally drown yourself in the Gulf of Spezia, after seeing your doppelganger.

Perhaps the best Romantic Expiration was that of Thomas Love Peacock, who Nobly Perished in a house fire when he refused to abandon his massive library, shouting, "By the immortal gods, I will not move!"

How to Be a Romantic Poet, Part Four

Tip #4: Have many youthful exploits! These exploits must, however, fall into the categories of dissipation, athletics or expulsion.

For dissipation, try to seduce as many people as you possibly can, from Cambridge choirboys to your Calvanist Bible teacher. Pass your time drinking and flirting with anyone who so much as catches your eye. If you are lucky, they will scorn you later on and thus allow you to develop professionally useful angst and dejection. Attend a good number of rowdy parties so as to later regret your mis-spent youth, to discover your superiority to the rest of the world, or merely to look dashing and melancholy and so cement your place in society.

For athletics, nothing is better than climbing mountains, swimming against the current, or walking a notable distance. Once you have spent a good deal of time in nature, you can reflect on its glories, or your glory in conquering it and wow the ladies by telling them you climbed the Alps (or just a hill, provided you make the hill full of faries or the like). If you are lucky, your midnight wanderings could lead to (you guessed it!) a wasting disease. If not, you could develop arthritis in all your joints and end up addicted to laudenum, which is not a bad booby prize.

For expulsion, try writing something extremely controversial and send it to all your class deans in an attempt to start up a campus-wide conversation about a difficult subject. Not only can you establish yourself as a writer, you can also get to show the unjustness of society and get out of taking your final exams.

How to Be a Romantic Poet, Part Three

If Tip #2 did not work for you, try following tip #3: Cultivate a good working relationship with Death.

It is somewhat difficult to do this, since Death is not said to be a terribly communicative fellow, but this will help you in the long run: the Grim Reaper can’t say much, but you can! Wax poetic about your own demise as much as possible. Again, a wasting disease is an invaluable tool, since it gives you plenty of time to compose. If you can, drink out of the skull of a medieval monk, just to prove you're that hard core. Or, if you like kill off a couple of characters in your poems in horrible and agonizing ways. If you are loath to do so, kill off an albatross instead and see what happens (tip 3a: if you do shoot an albatross and your enraged shipmates tie it around your neck, don't be alarmed if your shipmates' relationship with death is much different than your own, to whit, They Become Zombies. This is perfectly normal thing to happen to a Romantic visionary.)

The sight of a graveyard at midnight, or any kind of ruin should send you into a tizzy of poetic feeling. If it doesn’t, fake it and talk about how very inspiring it is to you to be so constantly reminded of your own impermanence and the immortality of your poetry before lapsing into a dreamy melancholy. Remember, suicide must always be an option, even if you are not very serious about following through.

“I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out,” reflected Byron, “but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law.”

How to Be a Romantic Poet, Part Two

Tip #2: Appear to have been spurned in love! It doesn’t really matter if you have or not, just address slightly melodramatic poems about your suffering, emotional, physical and spiritual to ‘------’. No one has to know you jotted down your quatrain because you stubbed your toe. You are in pain because your one true love, ------, who is coincidentally, every romantic poet’s one true love (Ode to ------, To ------, etc.) does not love you, has died, has decided to marry someone else, or has begged you to stop stalking them. Once again, it helps if you have caught some sort of wasting disease (political radicalism counts as a wasting disease, since you probably won’t live long if you catch it), so as to better enable you to lean upon your couch and sigh over the futility of your passion and of your existence in general.

If at all possible, marry someone you do not care for and immediately fall in love with someone else. As a baseline, try to fall in love with someone very close to you. The closer they are, the more Romantic Poet Points you get (say, one point for your neighbor, two points for your best friend’s sister-in-law, and three points for your own half-sibling). In extreme cases, you are allowed to fall in love with the offspring of another famous author, just as long as you shock said author and their spouse and cause everyone in England to snub you and force you on a tour of the Continent.

How to Be a Romantic Poet, Part One

Gentle Reader, who among us has not looked at a ruin and been sent into spastic fits of glee that could only be contained in blank verse, been tempted to imitate the ancients, attack the government in rhyming couplets about the wind, reflect constantly on one's impermanence, engage in highly complicated love affairs that would puzzle any future scholar of your life, immortalize your friends as Gentle-Hearted So-and-So, spite the lovers who spurned you by dying of a wasting disease while composing your own epitaph, or found a utopian commune on the banks of the Susquehanna?

If your answer to all these questions is no, then, alas! You are not a Romantic Poet.

What a sad state of affairs, Gentle Reader. The Amateur Historian quite feels your pain and thus introduces yet another series to this blog: "How To Be A Romantic Poet." (There is a fantastic article that does a much better and much more concise job of listing this than the Amateur Historian and, in fact, inspired this series. It was published in a museum magazine once and it was also once passed out in the Amateur Historian's English class and she can no longer recall who wrote it or where it was published. However, credit for this idea goes to whoever wrote it first. The Amateur Historian apologizes for her crappy memory.

Tip 1: Look the part! You must have curls in wild disarray, to prove that your mind is on higher things and that you yourself have been touched by the zeitgeist, the spirit of the era. It cannot be too messy, however, or people will just think you are a hobo. The Amateur Historian suggests folowing Byron's model of sleeping with his hair in curlers. Abandon your cravat as a sign of an oppressive society who would seek to muzzle your voice with its restrictive neckwear and defy it by wearing an open-necked shirt in all weather. This not only makes you look cool, it can make you downright chilly and let you catch a wasting disease. Everyone always takes you more seriously if you are likely to die young after producing your own epitaph.

If you cannot catch a wasting disease despite your best efforts to do so, attempt to look the part by keeping a suitably ethereal figure by, as was Byron's wont, playing cricket while wearing seven waistcoats and a greatcoat. If cricket is not to your liking, try to be relentlessly bullied as a small child, so as to stunt your growth by being kept from your food, writing at all hours of the night and never sleeping, or hiking up mountains to feed your soul on the beauties of rural England and not on, say, the hard-boiled egg your slave, er, that is sister, made for you.

Check back every day this week for new tips on how to prove to all those detractors who claim you have no soul or sentiment that you can, as Wordsworth put it, be:

"A man speaking to men... endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than one supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the Universe, and habitually compelled to create them where he does not find them."

Literary PSA

On the subject of Lord Byron, the Amateur Historian would like to make a general statement on the Byronic hero for the edification of her gentle readers:

Breakfast with Lord Byron

Ah, Gentle Readers, today is a special day! For those virtuous few who rise early may dine with Lord Byron... after he shoos away his company from last evening and takes out his hair curlers of course.


Your meal will consist of tea with a raw egg stirred in, if Lord Byron is feeling partiuclarly hungry, or watered vinegar if not.


You will probably be feeding Byron's manorexia and vanity more than anything else, but you will be the envy of all of London and a jealous Lady Caroline Lamb (possibly Byron's most famous lover, if one does not count the questionable liasons between Byron and his half-sister, Augusta Leigh) will most likely faint on your doorstep and hate you forever.