Vic

Jane’s novels are stock-full of Byronic wannabes (or “Byronnabes”) who stumble-about, choke-up, dwindle and fail. Wickham is more of a Lovelace, but he may fit; Willoughby certainly fits, going so far as to confess his admiration of the Mad-and-Bad Himself to Marianne; there is what’s-his-face in Sanditon who threatens to steal the heroine to Timbuktu …. All become jokes, caricatures of the model: Jane’s case-in-point in just how silly all this Byron-y is.

Both Darcy and Colonel Brandon are more on the melodramatic side: tall, slim, dark, quiet, dangerous (Darcy), morose (Brandon) –

– oops, I dallied: let’s save that thought.

It got me thinking because I’m from Poland, and we don’t have the bad boy archetype in our literature. Even if some exceptions might be found, it’s nowhere similar to the army of villains in the English language culture, and especially not among the protagonists. Our characters are portrayed in more shades of grey rather than black and white, which I think comes from the geographical situation as well as from history and politics. I.e. the English bad guy tends to be an outsider (Darcy is too), while ours are all insiders. Gothic novels are written off entirely, because vampires in our folk tradition are our relatives or at least long time neighbours, and they’re not even so scary or sexual, just miserable. It’s the Western literature that made sexual predators out of our poor Central-Eastern European undead.

There is one book (Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz) where a character similar to Darcy is considered Byronic exactly because he seems villainous at first, with some dark past et al, even though it’s later explained away. My point is that perhaps Austen had a similar approach to the archetype, making it sound and reasonable instead of just Mad, Bad & Dangerous to know. At least Lizzy thinks that it’s dangerous to know Darcy at first – she sees him as a bad-tempered cynic and a revengeful men-hater – but it all appears to be a very human misunderstanding.

Was there such an archetype at all before the sentimental and romantic novels? I think that earlier villains were static. I.e. Don Juan doesn’t come through any change or revelation. He’s as bad at the beginning as at the end, and we’re left in no doubt about him. Even if other characters might be left in the dark, reader always knows better.

Wiki gives a number of Byronic hero’s traits, and when applied to Darcy, either at the beginning or at the end of the novel, at least the vast majority of them fit him quite well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byronic_hero

Of course Austen couldn’t have taken her pattern from Byron. It was too early for that. But I think that the archetype was in the air, and she used it in her own way, while Byron went into the more dramatic rendition. Perhaps our contemporary definitions depend on our views on the whole. Darcy is no Heathcliff or Rochester, and so he comes off as very unlike the dark heroes. Yet, in my culture, where such heroes are few and far between (even though Romanticism is a major genre here), Darcy stands out as very typical for the era.

Not that I feel like reading about a Darcy-vampire, but it’s not the first time I see such a stretch made, and my supposition is that Darcy lends himself to the Byronic hero archetype even though he’s not supposed to be a bad boy, sexual predator or whatever. Just in the Anglo-Saxon countries the archetype has bloomed for the last 200 years more than others, and so some women are likely to stereotypise him into the more familiar and, perhaps, desirable direction. What I really don’t like about it is the lack of any ingenuity behind it.

I agree GN Reporter has quickly become a great site. (Of course I occasionally write for them, so perhaps I’m biased.)

I am indeed a teen librarian, but I think there’s SO much more to be done with GNs in the school sphere and I am really not the person to do that (in that I have little practical experience in a school setting).

Anywho, no hard feelings at all.

Actually it’s something I’ve been thinking about for some time. How do you define the Byronic hero? What, in your opinion, are the major characteristics?

Of course, I don’t really have room to talk. TGC isn’t my reviewsite, but I’ve written reviews; my full-time job and family has gotten in the way of that (and even blogging) for several months. I have tremendous respect (however) for Chris W., who has done a lot for legitimizing comics in the classroom. Plenty has been said on your behalf too.

So, anyway, while I don’t take back my comments about NFNT, I did want to make it clear that my animosity is only surface deep, and–while I THINK I heard you were a teen lib. yourself (or something, did I make that up?)–NFNT is still lauded over at YALSA. Kudos.

Your a killer sport, too.