European International Journal of Philological Sciences
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TYPE
Original Research
PAGE NO.
11-14
DOI
OPEN ACCESS
SUBMITED
09 December 2024
ACCEPTED
11 January 2025
PUBLISHED
13 February 2025
VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue02 2025
COPYRIGHT
© 2025 Original content from this work may be used under the terms
of the creative commons attributes 4.0 License.
The Use of Stylistic Devices
in
Byron’s Works
to Create
Vivid Romantic Hero
Images
Toshpulatov Bekhzod Bekmurod ugli
Researcher at Namangan State Institute of Foreign Languages, Uzbekistan
Abstract:
This article examines the romantic hero,
focusing on its defining traits and the emergence of the
Byronic hero in Byron’s The Giaour. Through stylistic
analysis, it explores how Byron uses epithets,
metaphors, and personifications to shape the image of
a rebellious, passionate, and tormented character. The
study highlights the Byronic hero’s defiance, tragic
destiny, and lasting literary influence.
Keywords:
Romanticism, romantic hero, stylistic
analysis, literary devices, metaphor, personification,
epithets, rebellion, tragic destiny.
Introduction:
The era of romanticism, in world
literature covering the period from the end of the 18th
to the middle of the 19th century, gives rise to a
completely special type of hero - the so-called romantic
type, which, in the presence of many modifications (for
example, the "Byronic" hero, "demonic", etc.) still
maintains unity and integrity. This type was formed in
art, after which the romantic worldview and model of
behavior began to spread among the masses. Y. M.
Lotman described the scheme of interaction between
art and reality in the era of romanticism as follows:
“Active influence is directed from the sphere of art to
the area of non-artistic reality. Life chooses art as a
model and hur
ries to “imitate” it” [Lotman Y.M., 1994.
P. 181].
The romantic hero is an exceptional and often
mysterious
person,
usually
under
exceptional
circumstances. The clash of external events is
transferred to the inner world of the hero, in whose soul
there is a struggle of contradictions. As a result of this
kind
of
reproduction,
romanticism
extremely
emphasized the value of the individual, inexhaustible in
the inner depths, revealing her unique inner world. On
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European International Journal of Philological Sciences
the one hand, a person in romantic works is embodied
with the help of contrast, opposition: on the one hand,
she understood the crown of creation, and on the
other, a frivolous toy in the hands of fate, unknown and
unaffected forces that play with her feelings.
Therefore, she often becomes a victim their own
passions.
The hero of romanticism, as a rule, strives for freedom
and defiantly opposes himself to other people, the
crowd, and often challenges more powerful forces,
even God. As philosopher Hegel rightly notes that:
“The true content of the romantic is the absolute inner
life, and the corresponding form is spiritual
subjectivity, comprehending its independence and
freedom” (Hegel, 1971, p. 233).
The development of romanticism in different national
literatures followed different paths. It depended on
the cultural situation in specific countries, and not
always those writers who were preferred by readers in
their homeland turned out to be significant on a pan-
European scale. Thus, in the history of English
literature, romanticism is embodied primarily by the
poets of the Lake School, William Wordsworth and
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but for European
romanticism, Byron was the most important figure
among the English romantics.
Features of the embodiment of the type in art have
been studied quite deeply within the framework of the
scientific tradition [Berkovsky, 2002; Khrapovitskaya
and Korovin, 2003]. Almost any fundamental research
devoted to foreign romanticism touches upon the
problem of the romantic hero. However, consideration
of the romantic character in the linguistic aspect is still
of some interest, in particular, from the point of view
of the use of artistic means in creating romantic
images.
In 1813 Byron began to write romantic poems later
called "oriental". This cycle includes the following
works: “Giaour” (1813), “Corsair” (1814), “Lara”
(1814), as well as the lesser-
known “The Bride of
Abydos” (1813), “The Siege of Corinth” (1816),
“Parisina” (1816) and “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage”, also
written based on travels (1813-1818).
The definition of "oriental" in full, if we mean color,
refers only to the first two; in Lara, as the poet himself
pointed out, the name is Spanish, and the country and
time of the event are not specifically indicated. The
poems are combined into a single cycle on the basis of
common features characteristic of all the named
poems. In them, Byron creates a romantic image of
that personality, which subsequently, mainly in the
19th century, began to be called “Byronic”.
The hero of Byron's "oriental poems" is usually a rebel
who rejects all the legal orders of a proprietary society.
He is a typical romantic image of the hero. He is
characterized by the exclusivity of his personal destiny,
extraordinary passions, unbending will, tragic love, fatal
hatred. Individualist and anarchist freedom is his ideal.
The "Giaour" was written in May-November 1813. The
Muslims called non-believers giaour. The story is of a
female slave, Leila, who loves the giaour, a true 'Byronic'
hero, and is in consequence bound and thrown in a sack
into the sea by her Turkish lord, Hassan. The giaour
avenges her by killing Hassan, then in grief and remorse
banishes himself to a monastery. A giaour confesses to
a monk on his deathbed. His incoherent story is the
delirium of a dying man who avenged the death of his
beloved. However, revenge did not bring the giaour
either satisfaction or peace. His troubled spirit is
tormented by a secret illness. He seeks to defend his
personal dignity from the encroachments of some
gloomy, dark world, which is personified in the poem by
a mysterious and hostile background surrounding the
hero. The nature of the giaour is revealed in the struggle
and in the tragic contradictions of his soul: he fiercely
resists the mysterious forces that threaten him; despair
does not weaken his desire for action, for battles:
I'd rather be the thing that crawls
Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls,
Than pass my dull, unvarying days,
Condemn'd to meditate and gaze. [The Giaour, XXVII,
21-24]
This quatrain is an auto-description of the nature of the
romantic hero. Here Byron skillfully uses several stylistic
means to convey the hero's conflict with boring life (dull,
unvarying days). The poet begins the credo with the use
of a paraphrase, (the thing that crawls) here can mean a
reptile or an insect, but in this case it is not the exact
name that matters, but the sema of submission,
humility to fate and the baseness of interests conveyed
by the description "the thing that crawls".
Further, the poet enhances the romantic image created
by the paraphrase with the capacious epithet "Most
noxious". This is followed by a couple more epithets
describing the bleak existence that the hero does not
want to lead: "dull, unvarying days". The very expression
"I'd rather be the thing that crawls" can be considered
as hyperbole, since a person, of course, cannot turn into
a wood lice. We should also point out the use of a
constructive antithesis technique (I'd rather be the thing
that crawls/ than pass my … days/ condemned to
meditate), which reinforces the romantic image and
gives a vivid impression of the rebellious nature of the
main romantic hero.
Giaour is tormented by the thought that his “rich
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European International Journal of Philological Sciences
feelings” are wasted on meaningless things: “The
farewell beam of Feeling pass'd away” [The Giaour, III,
33]. Here the hero's bitter disappointment is conveyed
by the author using metaphor (farewell beam of
Feeling) and personification (beam of Feeling pass'd
away). Desperate exclamations of Giaour express his
torment by the thought of the futility of his unspent
feelings (waste of feelings unemploy'd) [The Giaour,
XXVI, 24] and are transmitted by personification. In the
description of the appearance of this romantic hero,
we find the frequent use of epithets: Giaour's
complexion is pale (young and pale, that sallow front).
Here we note that Byron, with the help of these
comparisons, strives to emphasize the active, active
principle of the protagonist, the spirit of struggle that
lives in him.
There is also a demonic gloom in the character of
Giaour, expressed by the metonymy "bent on earth
thine evil eye" and fatigue from life, conveyed through
the metaphor "scathed by fiery passion's brunt". Byron
reinforces this demonic impression with the following
description:
Right well I view and deem thee one
Whom Othman's sons should slay or shun. [The Giaour,
VI, 19-20]
In this couplet, the author skillfully uses the artistic
device of paraphrase. Without naming the giaour, he
refers to him in the second person and creates a
capacious image of a man who is feared by Muslims,
brave and uncompromising (slay or shun). In this
image, we also observe the compression of stylistic
means, since "slay or shun" is a syntactic device of
opposition-antithesis. Further, the author emphasizes
the speed and dexterity of the central character with a
skillful comparison:
Though like a demon of the night
He pass'd, and vanish'd from my sight. [The Giaour, VII,
3-4]
This comparison “like a demon of the night”, as it were,
completes the demonic beginning in the image of
Giaour, which was prepared for several stanzas by a set
of other artistic means. In turn, it is impossible not to
mention the syntactic constructive figure of parallelism
"He pass'd, and vanish'd from my sight" in the verse.
It should be noted that the external manifestations of
the passions of the characters (and not just Giaour) are
romantically unusual and full of the most bizarre
metaphors. An angry Hassan's beard writhes with rage:
"Then curl'd his very beard with ire" [The Giaour, XVIII,
27]. The severed hand of the slain man continues to
tremble clutching the broken saber: "Down glanced
that hand, and grasp'd his blade; / That sound had
burst his waking dream" [The Giaour, VIII, 13]. Giaour's
black curls hang over his pale brow like Gorgon snakes:
His hood fly back, his dark hair fall,
That pale brow wildly wreathing round,
As if the Gorgon there had bound
The sablest of the serpent-braid
That o'er her fearful forehead stray'd [The Giaour, XXV,
60-65].
The above passage demonstrates Byron's skillful use of
antithetical epithets ("pale" - "sablest") and the epithet
"fearful". Further, in this small fragment, four
personifications are also presented: “hood fly back”,
“dark hair fall”, “brow wreathing round” and “the
serpent-
braid stray'd”, creating a bright, one might even
say exotic, image.
The union "As if" begins a detailed comparison of
Giaour's hair with Gorgon's snakes in color, length and
other features. In addition, inside the comparison, one
can find a metaphor (likening the Gorgon's hair, which
would find Giaour's hair blacker than snakes) and,
possibly, the personification: "the Gorgon there had
bound".
Further, the description of the swiftness and
impetuosity of the Giaour is also given by the author
with the help of a number of hyperbolas and
comparisons. Byron not only compares the romantic
hero of the poem with the devil (the sema "quick and
agile"), but also with the simoom (sandstorm), the
meteor, and also with the wind. In particular, Byron
assigns the following lines to the description of Giaour
on horseback:
And long upon my startled ear
Rung his dark courser's hoofs of fear. […]
That, jutting, shadows o'er the deep;
He winds around; he hurried by. [The Giaour, VII, 7-11]
Analyzing this stanza from a stylistic point of view, one
can single out several artistic means by which a
romantic image of a giaour is created. First, it's a
"startled ear" synecdoche, because, of course, the ear
can't be startled. Secondly, this image is presented with
the help of the epithets "dark" and "jutting", which
create the general impression of something sinister.
Thirdly, in the second line we find the metaphor of
"hoofs of fear". The image of the impetuous hero ends
with the metaphor “winds around”. And finally, with
regard to constructive techniques, Byron here resorts to
parallelism at the level
of the phrase: “He winds around;
he hurried by". All the stylistic devices of this quatrain
are subordinated to one goal: to show the decisiveness,
courage and speed of the romantic hero.
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Thus, based on the analyzed examples, we can
conclude that the main artistic means of creating a
romantic
image
of
Giaour
are
epithets,
personifications
and
metaphors.
Paraphrases,
antitheses and parallelisms are less common. Often
the author uses compression of artistic means.
CONCLUSION
So, summing up, we can draw the following
conclusions: Romanticism is not only a literary trend,
but also a whole philosophical and ideological
worldview, which is reflected in the art of different
countries. The characteristic features of romanticism
(in particular, in literature) include the principle of
duality, irony and self-irony, as well as the creation of
such romantic images as a wanderer hero in conflict
with the outside world and symbolic images of a
double, a shadow and a villain. The central romantic
image in the poem "Giaour" is the image of a Byronic
hero, who in many respects has autobiographical
features. To create a romantic image of Giaour, the
author mainly uses epithets, personifications and
metaphors.
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Гегель Г.В.Ф. Эстетика: в 4
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х т. –
М., 1971 –
Т.3. –
415
с.
Лотман Ю. М. Беседы о русской культуре. Быт и
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