Full Text: The Giaour

== About Lord Byron ==
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known as Lord Byron, was a British nobleman, poet, peer, politician, and leading figure in the Romantic movement. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage as well as the short lyric poem "She Walks in Beauty".
He travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years in the cities of Venice, Ravenna and Pisa. During his stay in Italy he frequently visited his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in life Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted in Missolonghi.
== About The Giaour ==
Byron was inspired to write the poem during his Grand Tour during 1810 and 1811, which he undertook with his friend John Cam Hobhouse. While in Athens, he became aware of the Turkish custom of throwing a woman found guilty of adultery into the sea wrapped in a sack.
"Giaour" (Turkish: Gâvur) is an offensive Turkish word for infidel or non-believer, and is similar to the Arabic word "kafir". The story is subtitled "A Fragment of a Turkish Tale", and is Byron's only fragmentary narrative poem. Byron designed the story with three narrators giving their individual point of view about the series of events. The main story is of Leila, a member of her master Hassan's harem, who loves the giaour and is killed by being drowned in the sea by Hassan. In revenge, the giaour kills him and then enters a monastery due to his remorse.
The design of the story allows for contrast between Christian and Muslim perceptions of love, death and the afterlife.
The poem was written after Byron had become famous overnight after the publication of the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and reflects his disenchantment with fame. It also reflects the gloom, remorse and lust of two illicit love affairs, one with his half-sister Augusta Leigh and the other with Lady Frances Webster.
The earliest version of the poem was written between September 1812 and March 1813, and a version of 700 lines published in June 1813. Several more editions were published before the end of 1813, each longer than the last. The last edition contains 1300 lines, almost twice as many as the version first published.
== Source Text ==
The Giaour, a fragment of a Turkish tale
* Publication date 1814
* Publisher: London Printed by T. Davison for J. Murray
* Digitizing sponsor: MSN
* Contributor: Robarts - University of Toronto
* Uploaded on: November 2, 2006
* Physical Copy: University of Toronto - Robarts Library
* https://archive.org/details/giaourfragmentof00byrouoft/page/n5
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Category:The Giaour
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