His poetry "masters with equal ease, lyric grace, and wrenching guilt" (Knight 209). Byron is truthfully cruel in his writing while maintaining the romantic thought. He tends to lose himself in the midst of "creating emotional shapes outside his direct experience". Throughout his poetry he expresses his weaknesses and sexual sin; Byron suffers from self-guilt, self-hatred and banishment because of his incestual affair (Knight 208). Byron often associated self-realization with guilt in his poetry; a personal identity was both attractive and repulsive (West 53). It is frequently argued that Byron's "deep sense of the will's ineffectuality led him not only to his theme of the trapped man but also away from a deep respect for human beings" (West 53). Lord Byron's social empathies are aggressively given to causes of liberty (Knight 207). .
Byron's attitude towards life inspired him to approach themes of liberty in his works; these attitudes were also reflected his deeds as well (Knight 208). He greatly admired his ancestors who fought in the Crusades and Byron himself eventually died as a Crusader, fighting for Greece (West 12). During the Greek Struggle, he fought against the Ottomans to attain independence for Greece which ultimately led to his death in 1824. His beliefs directed him to act as opposed to simply making a point in his works (West 12). Byron appeared as social reformist who was greatly devoted to independence. He became an admired character of London society by influencing Members of Parliament with his bold attitude for encouraging independence. As a strong advocate of social reform, Byron spoke his mind without fear in the House of Lords. In 1811, he stood up for a group of workers in London during the 19th century and violently protested against the machinery used during the Industrial Revolution (MacCarthy 82). He defended workers' rights in a determined way and spoke against government with the intention to accept the death penalty for protests.