Childe Harold
Preserved but no longer current.
Byron's poem depicts a man sated of the world, who roams from place to place to flee from himself. The "Childe" is, in fact, Lord Byron himself, who was only twenty-one when he began, and twenty-eight when he finished the poem. In canto i (1809), he visited Portugal and Spain; in canto ii (1810), Turkey in Europe; in canto iii (1816), Belgium and Switzerland; and in canto iv (1817), Venice, Rome, and Florence.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “Childe Harold” mean?
Byron's poem depicts a man sated of the world, who roams from place to place to flee from himself. The "Childe" is, in fact, Lord Byron himself, who was only twenty-one when he began, and twenty-eight when he finished the poem. In canto i (1809), he visited Portugal and Spain; in canto ii (1810), Turkey in Europe; in canto iii (1816), Belgium and Switzerland; and in canto iv (1817), Venice, Rome, and Florence.
Is “Childe Harold” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.