(Slovey and Haerens 67). Because of his reckless father and schizophrenic mother, Byron lacked discipline and temperance (Slovey and Haerens 67). Due to his uncle's death, Byron inherited his uncle's estate and became the 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale (Slovey and Haerens 67). Two years later, Lord Byron attended Harrow School in London and then shortly after, Trinity College at Cambridge University where he received his degree (Safier 527). At the age of 21, Byron was given a seat at the House of Lords and went to sessions for that year (Slovey and Haerens 67). During his years at Harrow, Byron fell madly for his cousin, Mary Chaworth, who later turned him down and became his muse; Mary became the symbol of idealized and unattainable love in Byron's poetry (West 12). Later, in 1815 Byron married Annabella Millbank with whom he had a daughter but after a year they separated because of Byron's alleged incest with his half-sister, causing a scandal that forced Byron to leave England for Europe (Slovey and Haerens 67). Evidently, Byron had several affairs and fathered many unlawful children throughout his life (Slovey and Haerens 67). Like many other nineteenth century intellectuals, Lord Byron viewed Napoleon Bonaparte as the embodiment of a philosophical groundwork-he was deeply influenced by Bonaparte's way of thinking (MacCarthy vii). Byron's work is penetrated with his fascination with Napoleon and affected how he lived his life. Born a year before the French Revolution, Byron was viewed as the enemy of England for defending and supporting Napoleon (MacCarthy viii). The spirit of Napoleon served as a "spur to Byron's own ambition, his dissidence, the glamour of his arrogancethat permeates his writing" (MacCarthy vii). Napoleon's sense of flamboyance and his overall image fostered Byron's "own creative strain of mockery" (MacCarthy vii).
Like other romantic poets, Byron often used highly structured and rigid traditional forms to craft his poems (Knight 208).
