The Byronic Hero’s Existential Quest in “The Prisoner of Chillon”

This paper attempts at investigating the pattern of existentialism in Lord Byron’s narrative poem ‘ThePrisoner of Chillon’. As a prominent key to the literary theory of the ۲۰th century, existentialism applies to the man’scondition and his vision of and function in the world. Existentialism has been associated with Jean Paul Sartreinfluentially and according to his explication, man has been born into a kind of void or a mud into which he has theliberty, consciousness and awareness to stay. Although it suggests passivity, it is profoundly subjective due to the factthat it deals with the man’s choice. The prisoner in Lord Byron’s poem is an individual who is defined as the ByronicHero and narrates the account of his brothers’ and his imprisonment. This long monologue is explored as an existentialquest in terms of perception and function.

Keywords:

component , Existentialism , Byronic Hero , Consciousness , choice , subjectivity