The Byronic Hero

Named for George Gordon, Lord Byron, the Byronic hero is a term first attached to the protagonist of his first major poetic narrative Childe Harold.  Because of the similarities between Byron's life and the lives of so many of his characters, the label has been applied to a number of Romantic male characters who feature some combination of the the following characteristics:

• unusually handsome, or inextricably attractive, often to both sexes
• wounded or physically disabled in some way
• moody, mysterious, and/or gloomy
• passionate (both in terms of sexuality and deep emotions generally)
• remorse laden (for some unnamed sin)
• unrepentant (despite remorse)
• wandering
• isolated (both physically and emotionally)
• self-reliant (often rejecting people on both physical and emotional levels)

He often harbors the torturing memory of an enormous, nameless guilt that drives him toward an inevitable doom.  He holds himself aloof and sees himself as immensely superior in his passions and powers to the common run of humanity, whom he regards with disdain.  He inflexibly pursues his own ends according to his self-generated moral code, against all opposition.  And he exerts an attraction on other characters that is the more compelling because it involves their terror at his obliviousness to ordinary human concerns.