The Autobiographical Element in Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III

In 1816, deserted by his wife Anabella, separated from his infant daughter Ada, and cold- shouldered by the society that had lionized him, Byron left England for good feeling himself an outcast and exile.

In Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III Byron drew Harold largely in his own image, attributing to Harold many of his own sufferings. And Byron continues to speak through Harold until midway in the lyric inspired by Byron's devotion to his half-sister Augusta. From now on Byron speaks directly, and Harold vanishes from the poem.

In Canto III of the poem Byron brought his agony and disillusionment to bear in his writing. In the opening scene he bemoans his separation from his infant daughter. The act of writing the Canto is partly therapeutic, since it will

Wean me from the weary dream
Of selfish grief or sadness.

Byron feels 'wrung with the wounds which kill not but ne'er heal'. This has tempered some of his gloom but has increased his despair.

Byron had for a time drawn from a "purer fount", which probably is a covert reference to his wife to whom Byron had turned in search of salvation. He refers to the temptations of fame which once again threw him into the vortex within which he had no direction or means to escape. Byron was thus driven to shun society and seek out Nature as an escape from Man.

In the Rhine valley scene, Byron sings a song of love to 'one soft breast'

Which unto him was bound by stronger ties
Than the Church binds withal; and though unwed
The love was pure.

The reference here is certainly to his half-sister Augusta.

On the shores of Lake Leman in Switzerland, Byron reflects upon the solace of solitary communion with Nature and the misery of communion with man.

In the concluding stanzas Byron states again the reason for writing, 'to steel the heart against itself', setting himself up once more as the aloof, crowd-hating aristocrat, but closing with a tender address to his infant daughter. He hopes that the child, despite all attempts to breed hate for him in her, would come to love him and hear his voice through his poetry. He feels resigned that the closeness of parent and child was not in his destiny.