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Chillon: History and poem
This is a small booklet that provides the history and photographs of the fortress of Chillon located on the shore of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Lord Byron's poem The Prisoner of Chillon is included.
46 pages, Paperback
First published September 10, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
September 22, 2016
I haven't read much Byron over the years, just bits and pieces here and there, so I did not know anything about this poem or the events that inspired it. I was more than a little bit intimidated when I saw that the edition of the poem available at Project Gutenberg was stuffed full of footnotes. I decided to read just the poem itself first, then go back and re-read it with the notes. I also saved any Googling of the topic for after my first run-through. I wanted to experience the pure poem first and foremost.
Narrated by an unnamed man, this poem tells of his years of imprisonment. It was easy to place myself in that damp, mouldy dungeon, with an iron shackle on my leg, fastened to a pillar, unable to see more than just a tiny stream of sunlight. Moving, dramatic, and ultimately victorious in a bittersweet way, the prisoner's story as told by Byron will stay with me for a long time.
As will the real story. Byron was inspired to write his poem after visiting the Chateau de Chillon and touring the very dungeon where Francois Bonivard spent six years in chains for political activism against the Duke of Savoy in 1530. Six years spent pacing back and forth as far as the length of his chain would allow. According to wiki, the rut he created in the floor is still there, as is the chain.
There are of course some details about the poem and the true story that do not match. In the poem our prisoner at first has two of his brothers as companions, each of the three being shackled to a different stone pillar. They cannot see each other, but they can still speak together, even though
"Our voices took a dreary tone,
An echo of the dungeon stone,
A grating sound, not full and free,
As they of yore were wont to be:
It might be fancy—but to me
They never sounded like our own."
As far as I could tell from my limited exploring, Bonivard was alone during his time in Chillon. But a poet is allowed his dramatic license, right? I would certainly not hold it against Byron for creating a poem that will wrench the heart strings of his readers more than it relates all of the facts. Those facts inspired him to imagine himself chained in that dungeon, and his talent made it possible for the rest of us to experience what he felt, what he imagined The Prisoner himself might have felt.
And those footnotes? They turned out to be digs comparing this line or that phrase to other poets. Did Byron copy Wordsworth's style? Did he lift lines from this poet or that one and change them to fit into his poem? I am not enough of a Byron scholar to weigh in on this debate, if it is even still ongoing. I know that anyone who writes is influenced by many things around them, including what they themselves read. I would assume all such influences would find their way into an author's work one way or another.
But that is no reason to avoid The Prisoner Of Chillon. This poem will make you appreciate your ability to go outside anytime you choose, to feel the sun on your face, the garden grass beneath your bare feet. Read it: you will be grateful for your freedom.
Narrated by an unnamed man, this poem tells of his years of imprisonment. It was easy to place myself in that damp, mouldy dungeon, with an iron shackle on my leg, fastened to a pillar, unable to see more than just a tiny stream of sunlight. Moving, dramatic, and ultimately victorious in a bittersweet way, the prisoner's story as told by Byron will stay with me for a long time.
As will the real story. Byron was inspired to write his poem after visiting the Chateau de Chillon and touring the very dungeon where Francois Bonivard spent six years in chains for political activism against the Duke of Savoy in 1530. Six years spent pacing back and forth as far as the length of his chain would allow. According to wiki, the rut he created in the floor is still there, as is the chain.
There are of course some details about the poem and the true story that do not match. In the poem our prisoner at first has two of his brothers as companions, each of the three being shackled to a different stone pillar. They cannot see each other, but they can still speak together, even though
"Our voices took a dreary tone,
An echo of the dungeon stone,
A grating sound, not full and free,
As they of yore were wont to be:
It might be fancy—but to me
They never sounded like our own."
As far as I could tell from my limited exploring, Bonivard was alone during his time in Chillon. But a poet is allowed his dramatic license, right? I would certainly not hold it against Byron for creating a poem that will wrench the heart strings of his readers more than it relates all of the facts. Those facts inspired him to imagine himself chained in that dungeon, and his talent made it possible for the rest of us to experience what he felt, what he imagined The Prisoner himself might have felt.
And those footnotes? They turned out to be digs comparing this line or that phrase to other poets. Did Byron copy Wordsworth's style? Did he lift lines from this poet or that one and change them to fit into his poem? I am not enough of a Byron scholar to weigh in on this debate, if it is even still ongoing. I know that anyone who writes is influenced by many things around them, including what they themselves read. I would assume all such influences would find their way into an author's work one way or another.
But that is no reason to avoid The Prisoner Of Chillon. This poem will make you appreciate your ability to go outside anytime you choose, to feel the sun on your face, the garden grass beneath your bare feet. Read it: you will be grateful for your freedom.
July 26, 2017
Poetry and I rarely get along, but I loved this. My pleasure derived more than a little from having the eponymous castle only feet away from the bank I was perched on while consuming Lord Byron's verses. Yet while I highly recommend that experience, I think this work stands on its own.
Inspired by the real imprisonment of Francois Bonivard in the sixteenth century, this poem tells of his confinement in the dungeon of Chillon, the untimely death of his brothers only a few feet away (yet just beyond reach to the chained Bonivard), and his eventual and bittersweet liberation. It touches the extremes of human experience and emotion and was simply heartbreaking. If I remember my literature classes correctly, Romantics such as Lord Byron were not known for verisimilitude, but I think the emotion this evokes (if not the actual events) are as raw and real as one could ask for.
Inspired by the real imprisonment of Francois Bonivard in the sixteenth century, this poem tells of his confinement in the dungeon of Chillon, the untimely death of his brothers only a few feet away (yet just beyond reach to the chained Bonivard), and his eventual and bittersweet liberation. It touches the extremes of human experience and emotion and was simply heartbreaking. If I remember my literature classes correctly, Romantics such as Lord Byron were not known for verisimilitude, but I think the emotion this evokes (if not the actual events) are as raw and real as one could ask for.
September 4, 2020
Mis cabellos son grises, pero no por la edad, y no se volvieron blancos en una sola noche, como ocurre a veces a causa de un súbito pavor. Mi cuerpo está encorvado, pero no por el trabajo, pues su entumecimiento fue provocado por innoble reposo. Soy el habitante de una fosa.
May 1, 2024
I have read "The Prisoner of Chillon" 3 times in the past week. I love the historical context behind this work, although you wouldn't need to know about the history to get enjoyment from this poem.
I think this works incredibly well as a look into what prolonged captivity does to people's minds, after a number of years, you essentially cease to exist as a person, you grow accustomed to captivity, even being released can seem intimidating. As Byron writes:
"I had no thought, no feeling -none-
Among the stones I stood a stone,
And was, scarce conscious what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist;
For all was blank, and bleak, and grey,
It was not night - it was not day,
It was not even the dungeon-light,
So hateful to my heavy sight,
But vacancy absorbing space,
And fixedness - without a place;
There were no stars - no earth - no time -
No check - no change - no good - no crime
But silence, and a stirless breath
Which neither was of life nor death;
A sea of stagnant idleness,
Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!"
I say it everytime, but I just can't believe how good Byron's poetry is, he writes the best kind of melancholy. So good!
I think this works incredibly well as a look into what prolonged captivity does to people's minds, after a number of years, you essentially cease to exist as a person, you grow accustomed to captivity, even being released can seem intimidating. As Byron writes:
"I had no thought, no feeling -none-
Among the stones I stood a stone,
And was, scarce conscious what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist;
For all was blank, and bleak, and grey,
It was not night - it was not day,
It was not even the dungeon-light,
So hateful to my heavy sight,
But vacancy absorbing space,
And fixedness - without a place;
There were no stars - no earth - no time -
No check - no change - no good - no crime
But silence, and a stirless breath
Which neither was of life nor death;
A sea of stagnant idleness,
Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!"
I say it everytime, but I just can't believe how good Byron's poetry is, he writes the best kind of melancholy. So good!
February 3, 2022
"To hoard my life that his might be
Less wretched now and one day Free"
Less wretched now and one day Free"
September 8, 2022
Even how prolific Byron was, how mythical but real the Byronic hero is, I could only appreciate much of the poet’s oeuvre: I rank The Prisoner of Chillon next to “Darkness” being his best.
January 18, 2015
This poem is beyond perfect! So touching!
February 7, 2019
Lord Byron, aj po 200 rokoch som sa zaľúbila! Očaril. Životom, rebéliou, hľadaním, slobodomyšlienkárstvom. Aj v poézii je formálne neviazaný, obrazotvorný, dokonca hlboko citlivý.
July 27, 2024
The story is told in the first person by Bonnivard, who recalls the loss of all his family and the years spent in the dungeon. Though he is now released, his preoccupation is not with freedom but with the captivity which became the only life he knew:
That iron is a cankering thing,
For in these limbs its teeth remain,
With marks that will not wear away
Till I have done with this new day,
Which now is painful to these eyes,
Which have not seen the sun so rise
For years-
This theme is recalled at the end of the poem when Bonnivard remarks:
even I
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.
To some extent, therefore, the poem is concerned with the confinement of the spirit through the imprisonment of the body-a confinement which does not end with the physical release.
Sections II to VIII tells us of the dungeon itself: its pillars with iron rings in them, the sickly light from a high barred window and the sound of Leman's waters reminding us that the dungeon itself lay before the level of the lake.
All these details Byron personally witnessed.
We learn, too, of the character of Bonivard's two brothers (who shared his imprisonment) and the efforts of all of them to retain their spirit. But these efforts are useless against the insidious power of the dungeon:
Our voices took a dreary tone,
An echo of the dungeon stone,
A grating sound, not full and free,
As they of yore were wont to be;
It might be fancy, but to me
They never sounded like our own.
When the first brother dies and the jailors mockingly refuse to bury his body in the open air, another blow is dealt to freedom.
When Bonnivard witnesses his younger brother's lingering death and knows the total solitariness to which he is brought, he is plunged into oblivion, devoid of all sense, which Byron powerfully evokes in Section IX:
I had no thought, no feeling none
Among the stones I stood a stone,
And was, scarce conscious of what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist;
For all was blank, and bleak, and grey:
It was not night, it was not day;
It was not even the dungeon-light,
So hateful to my heavy sight,
But vacancy absorbing space,
And fixedness without a place,...
He is recalled from this desolation of spirit by a bird that has found its way into the dungeon and provides him with something of the companionship he has lost. He is now unchained and able to walk the cell; he can even climb up to the barred window to see the scenery all around.
But all the images of freedom come too late for him; his spirit is already confined and crushed.
We may mention as examples of the former the conventional treatment of the two brothers (the hunter devoted to an outdoor existence, the youngest and most beloved of all to goodness and innocence), Bonnivard’s failure and success at breaking his chain, and the bird as the symbol of freedom.
Sentimentality is ostensible in the treatment of the youngest brother and in many small phrases, such as the prison bread which was
Such as captives' tears-
Have moistened many a thousand years.
The Prisoner of Chillon is a much more accepted poem than the Turkish tales. It is simply and movingly written and is, unlike the tales, free from stylistic carelessness. Its faults are some lack of innovation and a constant tendency towards sentimentality.
That iron is a cankering thing,
For in these limbs its teeth remain,
With marks that will not wear away
Till I have done with this new day,
Which now is painful to these eyes,
Which have not seen the sun so rise
For years-
This theme is recalled at the end of the poem when Bonnivard remarks:
even I
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.
To some extent, therefore, the poem is concerned with the confinement of the spirit through the imprisonment of the body-a confinement which does not end with the physical release.
Sections II to VIII tells us of the dungeon itself: its pillars with iron rings in them, the sickly light from a high barred window and the sound of Leman's waters reminding us that the dungeon itself lay before the level of the lake.
All these details Byron personally witnessed.
We learn, too, of the character of Bonivard's two brothers (who shared his imprisonment) and the efforts of all of them to retain their spirit. But these efforts are useless against the insidious power of the dungeon:
Our voices took a dreary tone,
An echo of the dungeon stone,
A grating sound, not full and free,
As they of yore were wont to be;
It might be fancy, but to me
They never sounded like our own.
When the first brother dies and the jailors mockingly refuse to bury his body in the open air, another blow is dealt to freedom.
When Bonnivard witnesses his younger brother's lingering death and knows the total solitariness to which he is brought, he is plunged into oblivion, devoid of all sense, which Byron powerfully evokes in Section IX:
I had no thought, no feeling none
Among the stones I stood a stone,
And was, scarce conscious of what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist;
For all was blank, and bleak, and grey:
It was not night, it was not day;
It was not even the dungeon-light,
So hateful to my heavy sight,
But vacancy absorbing space,
And fixedness without a place,...
He is recalled from this desolation of spirit by a bird that has found its way into the dungeon and provides him with something of the companionship he has lost. He is now unchained and able to walk the cell; he can even climb up to the barred window to see the scenery all around.
But all the images of freedom come too late for him; his spirit is already confined and crushed.
We may mention as examples of the former the conventional treatment of the two brothers (the hunter devoted to an outdoor existence, the youngest and most beloved of all to goodness and innocence), Bonnivard’s failure and success at breaking his chain, and the bird as the symbol of freedom.
Sentimentality is ostensible in the treatment of the youngest brother and in many small phrases, such as the prison bread which was
Such as captives' tears-
Have moistened many a thousand years.
The Prisoner of Chillon is a much more accepted poem than the Turkish tales. It is simply and movingly written and is, unlike the tales, free from stylistic carelessness. Its faults are some lack of innovation and a constant tendency towards sentimentality.
June 30, 2021
Oh, God! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood:
I've seen it rushing forth in blood,
I've seen it on the breaking ocean
Strive with a swoln convulsive motion,
I've seen the sick and ghastly bed
Of Sin delirious with its dread:
But these were horrors—this was woe
Unmix'd with such—but sure and slow:
He faded, and so calm and meek,
So softly worn, so sweetly weak,
So tearless, yet so tender—kind,
And grieved for those he left behind;
For all was blank, and bleak, and grey;
It was not night—it was not day;
It was not even the dungeon-light,
So hateful to my heavy sight,
But vacancy absorbing space,
And fixedness—without a place;
There were no stars, no earth, no time,
No check, no change, no good, no crime
But silence, and a stirless breath
Which neither was of life nor death;
A sea of stagnant idleness,
Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!
A light broke in upon my brain,—
To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood:
I've seen it rushing forth in blood,
I've seen it on the breaking ocean
Strive with a swoln convulsive motion,
I've seen the sick and ghastly bed
Of Sin delirious with its dread:
But these were horrors—this was woe
Unmix'd with such—but sure and slow:
He faded, and so calm and meek,
So softly worn, so sweetly weak,
So tearless, yet so tender—kind,
And grieved for those he left behind;
For all was blank, and bleak, and grey;
It was not night—it was not day;
It was not even the dungeon-light,
So hateful to my heavy sight,
But vacancy absorbing space,
And fixedness—without a place;
There were no stars, no earth, no time,
No check, no change, no good, no crime
But silence, and a stirless breath
Which neither was of life nor death;
A sea of stagnant idleness,
Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!
A light broke in upon my brain,—
Read
December 19, 2022Perfect economy of style, never a word unnecessary. The only one to rival Byron is Wordsworth. Something very profound in this, and interesting that an Edward Gibbon style meditation should become the standard way we view historical people through English? So bizarre, yet beautiful.
November 18, 2017
Another great poem. Another flood of deep emotion.
October 6, 2020
" I regain'd my freedom with a sigh."
July 30, 2022
Lovely photographs of the castle complement the brief history (written in the 1920s) of the Chateau de Chillon. This includes the beautiful poem by Lord Byron: "The prisoner of Chillon".
February 24, 2024
An amazing luscious poem by Lord Byron
March 15, 2024
I had the good fortune recently to visit the Chateau de Chillon and walk around this dungeon. Both the place and Byron's poem are very sobering.
May 5, 2014
Una pequeña obra maestra (por tamaño) de mi amado Lord Byron. Con unas pocas palabras, te transporta literalmente a esa celda del castillo, sufriendo lo mismo que el protagonista. Seguramente así se sentía él, encerrado en una celda, de la que no podía salir.
November 21, 2012
It seems like he wrote this poem in prison. And breast was aching after...
December 16, 2013
Absolutely amazing. Byron draws such dark pictures - and you grow to love them.
September 4, 2016
beautiful
April 20, 2015
Byron has a matyr's heart.
April 21, 2016
Even though
June 2, 2017
Definetely a poem that needs to read aloud to be appreciated. Alright but not mindblowing, definetely anticlimatic as my first byron.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews