"Stanzas" is a poem written by Lord Byron in 1820. Lord Byron, a familiar name all around the world, is one of the greatest British poets, as well as a politician and a leader in the Romantic movement during the early 1800s. His life was extremely flamboyant and aristocratically excessive, but his writing demonstrates much deeper themes. While some of his more well known poems are long and narrative, Stanzas is a rather short and quite lyrical poem that addresses his thoughts on war.
Byron traveled throughout Europe, from Italy to Greece, where he actually joined them in their war for independence against the Ottomans. From that, Byron not only became a national figure in Greece, but he also developed even more ideas on war and fighting for one’s country. Though he passed away at the earl age of 36 from a sickness, Byron’s poetry lives on as some of the greatest.
"Stanzas" has an extremely ambiguous and double sided tone; the reader is unsure if the speaker is being patriotic or anti-war. Byron employs much irony in "Stanzas," which emphasizes the ambivalence in this work, though there is a clear vein of weariness in the poem as well. Byron also draws out the tensions between one’s call to commit to fighting for freedom and a higher moral standard in this poem, making Stanzas a complex work full of conflicting and unclear themes.
