Childe Harold

A man sated of the world, who roams from place to place to flee from himself. The “childe” is, in fact, Lord Byron himself, who was only twenty-one when he began, and twenty-eight when he finished the poem. In canto i. (1809), he visited Portugal and Spain; in canto ii. (1810), Turkey in Europe; in canto iii. (1816), Belgium and Switzerland; and in canto iv. (1817), Venice, Rome, and Florence.