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In Britain, "lying in state" takes place only in Westminster Hall. A public viewing in any other location is "lying in repose." -- Kent G. Budge ( talk) 15:15, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
We say:
From that point onwards it would seem that he was no longer George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, but George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron.
Why is this not reflected in the lede and infobox? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 03:02, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
Lord Byron being described simply as "English" is not accurate but is rather a clumsy over-simplification of his complex national identity.
He himself identified as at least partly Scottish, saying he was "half a Scot by birth, and bred/A whole one". In this, he vocally identified as a Scot. He was educated for a time at Aberdeen Grammar School and reportedly had a Scottish accent (albeit a faint one) throughout his life.
The Gordons were of course a family with strong links to the north-east of Scotland (a branch of the Gordons held the Earldom of Huntly in north-east Scotland), and Byron corresponded with Aberdeenshire kin and relations all his life. He clearly had a Scottish component to his identity, as evidenced by his wearing tartan in his Greek campaign, visibly identifying with the (not that old) Scottish Highland martial tradition. He was also referred to by others as a Scot at the time, most famously by his lover Lady Caroline Lamb and by his first biographer Sir Cosmo Gordon.
Scotland was also the subject of many of his poems, most notably "Lachin Y. Gaer".
He was, at least partially, Scottish in his identity.
For more evidence, see: Murray Pittock, "Scotland: The Global History, 1603 to the Present" (2022). Scottymacd ( talk) 16:23, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
"British" is a loaded term, full of 20th century assumptions and connotations; the term "Anglo-Scottish" was carefully chosen as a consequence to reflect an early nineteenth century cultural reality, however tortured some people may find it.
I will update the article; notwithstanding a prevailing Anglocentric ignorance in some quarters, there is a wealth of reliable sources - however overlooked in English historiography - indicating Lord Byron had a very complex national identity. Scottymacd ( talk) 07:29, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for all your input. With regards to Lord Byron's title, it belongs to the Peerage of England because it was created (in the 17th century) before parliamentary union and so before the Peerage of Great Britain existed. Functionally, however, he sat in the House of Lords of the UK and does not appear (from what I can discern) to have had a strong engagement with the locality of his baronial title (Rochdale). As regards "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers", he was tongue-in-cheek contrasting his poetic works with the critical reviewers of the "Edinburgh Review", but a significant part of his poetry deals with Scotland. "Lachin Y Gaer" ("Lochnagar") is amongst his most famous poems and it demonstrates a connection with the north-east of Scotland (where he was educated between 1794 and 1798 and where his mother's family - the Gordons - hailed).
Thank you for your input, Iskandar323 and Walrasiad. It is clear that Byron - so complex in many ways - had a complex national identity. Indeed, that he was such a proactive internationalist is an important part of his character (and why he is still revered in Greece and Albania).
Because of his Scottish heritage - his mother's family and his lifelong interaction with them; his time at Aberdeen Grammar School; the fact he is known to have referred to himself as a Scot - it is not wholly accurate to term him "English". I concede "Anglo-Scottish" is clunky and so I fully agree with Iskandar323 that "British" is the most appropriate term. Scottymacd ( talk) 16:57, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
To be fair, I think that all the evidence should be looked at in the round, rather than isolating single facts and questioning them.
There is a lot of assertion going on here. I have evidenced and cited everything I have said; that's not true for everyone. It is particularly unhelpful for someone to project their own personal feelings onto the subject; I respect that Walrasiad has identified their viewpoint as a sensitivity and an insecurity, but it does not enlighten us here. I have made it clear that his engagement with Scotland, Scottish culture, and Scottish connections continues through his adulthood; this is not based only on the nationalities of his parents, or only on where he spent his formative years, but on analysis of those facts and his continued engagement thereafter. Interestingly, that doesn't appear to be an aspect people in this conversation will acknowledge, although there is a wealth of high-quality scholarship to back it up.
In his time, Byron referenced the Scottish aspects of his identity (see "Don Juan" for it being made irrevocably explicit), as well as by his lover Lady Caroline Lamb and his biographer Sir Cosmo Gordon. I have to repeat this because these are facts that are being ignored. I also cite scholarly work on this topic, and I am alone in doing so in this conversation:
Professor Murray Pittock, "Scotland: The Global History, 1603 to the Present" (2022)
Jonathan Gross, "From Lord Nevil to Dugald Dalgetty: Byron's Scottish Identity in Italy", featuring in Alan Rawes and Diego Saglia (ed.), "Byron and Italy" (2020)
Roderick Speer, "Byron and the Scottish Literary Tradition" in "Studies in Scottish Literature", Volume 14, Issue 1 (1979)
Anne Fleming, "In Search of Byron in England and Scotland" (1988)
Andrew Rutherford, "Byron, Scott, and Scotland in Charles E. Robinson (ed.) "Lord Byron and His Contemporaries: Essays from the Sixth International Byron Seminar"(1982)
I would appreciate other people evidencing their claims. Thank you both very much for your input. Scottymacd ( talk) 21:57, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Article https://wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2015/04/21/bears-badgers-and-boatswain-lord-byron-and-his-animals/ lists crocodile and honey badger.The article is referenced here. Xx236 ( talk) 06:31, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Lord Byron article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives:
Index,
1,
2,
3Auto-archiving period: 180 days
![]() |
![]() | This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
![]() | Lord Byron was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. | |||||||||
|
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() |
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
This page has archives. Sections older than 180 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present. |
In Britain, "lying in state" takes place only in Westminster Hall. A public viewing in any other location is "lying in repose." -- Kent G. Budge ( talk) 15:15, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
We say:
From that point onwards it would seem that he was no longer George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, but George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron.
Why is this not reflected in the lede and infobox? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 03:02, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
Lord Byron being described simply as "English" is not accurate but is rather a clumsy over-simplification of his complex national identity.
He himself identified as at least partly Scottish, saying he was "half a Scot by birth, and bred/A whole one". In this, he vocally identified as a Scot. He was educated for a time at Aberdeen Grammar School and reportedly had a Scottish accent (albeit a faint one) throughout his life.
The Gordons were of course a family with strong links to the north-east of Scotland (a branch of the Gordons held the Earldom of Huntly in north-east Scotland), and Byron corresponded with Aberdeenshire kin and relations all his life. He clearly had a Scottish component to his identity, as evidenced by his wearing tartan in his Greek campaign, visibly identifying with the (not that old) Scottish Highland martial tradition. He was also referred to by others as a Scot at the time, most famously by his lover Lady Caroline Lamb and by his first biographer Sir Cosmo Gordon.
Scotland was also the subject of many of his poems, most notably "Lachin Y. Gaer".
He was, at least partially, Scottish in his identity.
For more evidence, see: Murray Pittock, "Scotland: The Global History, 1603 to the Present" (2022). Scottymacd ( talk) 16:23, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
"British" is a loaded term, full of 20th century assumptions and connotations; the term "Anglo-Scottish" was carefully chosen as a consequence to reflect an early nineteenth century cultural reality, however tortured some people may find it.
I will update the article; notwithstanding a prevailing Anglocentric ignorance in some quarters, there is a wealth of reliable sources - however overlooked in English historiography - indicating Lord Byron had a very complex national identity. Scottymacd ( talk) 07:29, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for all your input. With regards to Lord Byron's title, it belongs to the Peerage of England because it was created (in the 17th century) before parliamentary union and so before the Peerage of Great Britain existed. Functionally, however, he sat in the House of Lords of the UK and does not appear (from what I can discern) to have had a strong engagement with the locality of his baronial title (Rochdale). As regards "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers", he was tongue-in-cheek contrasting his poetic works with the critical reviewers of the "Edinburgh Review", but a significant part of his poetry deals with Scotland. "Lachin Y Gaer" ("Lochnagar") is amongst his most famous poems and it demonstrates a connection with the north-east of Scotland (where he was educated between 1794 and 1798 and where his mother's family - the Gordons - hailed).
Thank you for your input, Iskandar323 and Walrasiad. It is clear that Byron - so complex in many ways - had a complex national identity. Indeed, that he was such a proactive internationalist is an important part of his character (and why he is still revered in Greece and Albania).
Because of his Scottish heritage - his mother's family and his lifelong interaction with them; his time at Aberdeen Grammar School; the fact he is known to have referred to himself as a Scot - it is not wholly accurate to term him "English". I concede "Anglo-Scottish" is clunky and so I fully agree with Iskandar323 that "British" is the most appropriate term. Scottymacd ( talk) 16:57, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
To be fair, I think that all the evidence should be looked at in the round, rather than isolating single facts and questioning them.
There is a lot of assertion going on here. I have evidenced and cited everything I have said; that's not true for everyone. It is particularly unhelpful for someone to project their own personal feelings onto the subject; I respect that Walrasiad has identified their viewpoint as a sensitivity and an insecurity, but it does not enlighten us here. I have made it clear that his engagement with Scotland, Scottish culture, and Scottish connections continues through his adulthood; this is not based only on the nationalities of his parents, or only on where he spent his formative years, but on analysis of those facts and his continued engagement thereafter. Interestingly, that doesn't appear to be an aspect people in this conversation will acknowledge, although there is a wealth of high-quality scholarship to back it up.
In his time, Byron referenced the Scottish aspects of his identity (see "Don Juan" for it being made irrevocably explicit), as well as by his lover Lady Caroline Lamb and his biographer Sir Cosmo Gordon. I have to repeat this because these are facts that are being ignored. I also cite scholarly work on this topic, and I am alone in doing so in this conversation:
Professor Murray Pittock, "Scotland: The Global History, 1603 to the Present" (2022)
Jonathan Gross, "From Lord Nevil to Dugald Dalgetty: Byron's Scottish Identity in Italy", featuring in Alan Rawes and Diego Saglia (ed.), "Byron and Italy" (2020)
Roderick Speer, "Byron and the Scottish Literary Tradition" in "Studies in Scottish Literature", Volume 14, Issue 1 (1979)
Anne Fleming, "In Search of Byron in England and Scotland" (1988)
Andrew Rutherford, "Byron, Scott, and Scotland in Charles E. Robinson (ed.) "Lord Byron and His Contemporaries: Essays from the Sixth International Byron Seminar"(1982)
I would appreciate other people evidencing their claims. Thank you both very much for your input. Scottymacd ( talk) 21:57, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Article https://wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2015/04/21/bears-badgers-and-boatswain-lord-byron-and-his-animals/ lists crocodile and honey badger.The article is referenced here. Xx236 ( talk) 06:31, 26 April 2023 (UTC)