Bored Byron (Newstead Abbey Reflection)

Poor Byron. Living in the lap of luxury in a grand manner, surrounded by plush gardens and grounds. Actually, though, I can kind of see his point. Upon entering the grounds of Newstead Abbey, you can't help but be amazed by the splendor of the gothic architecture and extensive detailing in the gardens. However, for a person like Byron, who enjoyed the company of others to an extreme, it probably would get a little lonely on the isolated grounds. Or maybe it was just the scary gothic face that greeted him at his own front door every day. The formality and solemnity that you feel as you walk through the main house makes you feel as if you should tiptoe and whisper--somehow I don't see Byron being one to tiptoe through anything (just look at his clothes!). A prevailing feeling of darkness seems to almost suffocate you throughout most of the interior. Cold stone is only occasionally interrupted by warmer wood paneling--but the haunting gothic is everywhere, literally reaching out of the wall even to give you much needed light. The Abbey is a place that has been ripped apart by disputes of the Catholic church and Henry VIII and haunted by "the Black Monk"--a far cry from the Happiest Place on Earth!

The gardens in contrast offer a peaceful and more open, comfortable place to wander about with your thoughts--they do make you appreciate nature, so it is obvious why Byron may have become reflective here and wrote about his "Oak Tree" and also wanted his beloved dog, Boatswain, to remain in a tomb outdoors (see left) in one of the gardens versus anywhere in the Abbey. Even the gardens, though, are quite structured and more formal (English garden right) than the wild landscapes of Scotland that Byron so desires in his poems. Overall, the place would have been too repressive for Byron, who needed life and wildness to satiate his journeying mentality. Even the gift shop was a bit boring--little English trinkets from here and there (a variety of authors) but it could have been a lot more interesting by embracing the wild side of Byron and having more things with his funny quotes on them rather than just bookmarks of famous English authors and whatnot.

Newstead is much more formal and repressed than Sherwood Forest or the Yorkshire moors; clearly the authors were influenced by the settings around them. Although all seemed to desire the wild and free, Byron seems to be the most affected and the most unhappy by his living circumstances. He is the only one to truly leave and abandon entirely his true place of residence, seemingly without much remorse--he calls it only a "pile" upon returning to see its deterioration. The Brontes seem to accept more of a balance between life in the wild and life in their "civilized" homes; Emily has her "wild" characters return to a house at the end of Wuthering Heights, suggesting the two can mesh together successfully. Even in the tales of Robin Hood, Robin regularly ventures to town to have a little fun with the locals (including the Sheriff of Nottingham), but he doesn't seem to bear so dark an attitude as Byron, who seems to find Newstead a place of death and suffering, regarding his former place of residence. For a brief moment, I felt his torture behind a gated garden. Similarly, though, all the stories project an appreciation for the wild and freedom of nature--each author preferred the wild and felt more at home there than in an indoor structure; after my visit to Newstead, I must say that I was much more comfortable and at ease with my thoughts in the exterior landscapes of the gardens--my favorite of which was actually the more modern Japanese garden that I could actually interact with on stepping stones. I guess I, too, sing Freedom!