Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

George Noel Gordon Byron

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, the first two cantos of which were published in May 1812, made the 24-year-old George Gordon Byron famous overnight. It describes the author’s actual journey through the Iberian Peninsula and the Balkans, but the combination of a fluid and witty narrative with profound reflections (and hints of the ‘universal melancholy’ of a disillusioned young lyrical hero) immediately made this poem a favourite read for many thousands of people across the European continent. And two further songs, written a few years later, added philosophical depth and a sense of tragedy to it. The latest Ukrainian translation by Maksym Strikha aims to recreate all the poetic charms of this seminal work of the Romantic era.