From Public Hero to Poet-Hero

Heroism in Wordsworth's The Prelude and Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24086/cuejhss.v10n1y2026.pp90-96

Keywords:

Romanticism, heroism, anagogic criticism, Byron, Wordsworth

Abstract

The Romantic era was a rethink of the English heroism: a transformation of the traditional, civic, action-oriented hero of the classical and neoclassical traditions into a new model, based on inner experience, self-consciousness, and imaginative transformation. This study examines that shift through two seminal long poems of the era, William Wordsworth's The Prelude (1805/1850) and Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), arguing that each poet constructs what may be termed a heroism of resistance and witness, in Byron's case, and a heroism of formation and integration, in Wordsworth's. Based on the theoretical framework of the Romantic inward turn developed by Northup Frye (Frye, 1963), the paper engages in close-reading of some passages in both poems and places them in a wider comparative framework that incorporates structural similarities with the Sufi mystical tradition. Byron and Wordsworth together explore the entire spectrum of what Romantic heroism might entail: Byron hero always leaves a world that is deprived of inherited meaning; Wordsworth hero is slowly formed by the memory, nature and imaginative perception. Both movements are a redefinition of the heroic subject that is among the most significant literary legacies of English Romanticism.

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Author Biographies

Mohammed A. Kareem, Department of English, College of Languages, Salahaddin University-Erbil, Iraq

Mohammed Abdullah Kareem is an Academic Lecturer at Salahaddin University-Erbil (SUE) in Iraq, specializing in Literature, Literary Linguistics (Stylistics), Cognitive Poetics, and Narrative. He holds an MA in Literary Linguistics from the University of Nottingham, UK, and currently pursues his PhD in English Literature at Salahaddin University-Erbil.

Sherzad S. Barzani, Department of English, College of Languages, Salahaddin University-Erbil, Iraq

Sherzad Shafi’ Barzani is a Professor of English Literature at Salahaddin University-Erbil, where he has taught since 2001. Specializing in Modern American Poetry, his research explores diverse themes including Trauma Theory, Post-colonialism, and Eco-criticism. An accomplished poet and multilingual translator, he has published Kurdish translations of Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson, as well as a Persian translation of the Kurdish epic Mam and Zin. 

Sirwan A. Ali, Department of English, College of Languages, Salahaddin University-Erbil, Iraq

Sirwan Abdulkarim Ali specializes in English and Cultural Studies, Comparative Literature, and Intercultural Communication. He holds a PhD from the University of Western Australia and an MA in Comparative Literature from Salahaddin University-Erbil. His research focuses on gender representations in fiction, postmodern literature, and the intersections of Kurdish and Western literary traditions.

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Published

2026-06-01

How to Cite

Kareem, M. A., Barzani, S. . S., & Ali, S. A. (2026). From Public Hero to Poet-Hero: Heroism in Wordsworth’s The Prelude and Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Cihan University-Erbil Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 10(1), 90–96. https://doi.org/10.24086/cuejhss.v10n1y2026.pp90-96

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 1 (2026)

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2026 Mohammed A. Kareem, Sherzad S. Barzani, Sirwan A. Ali

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