Speaking of Romantic storytelling, darling Byron comes to mind. Far from being a dear, he is called the biggest anti-Romantic and created what came to be known as the Byronic hero, who is dark, conflicted, full of melancholy. He strikes a brooding pose, broken by loss and devoid of hope. Or you could say: Instead of strutting about as heroes usually do, he revels in self-pity, but never manages to drown in his tears or a bottle, hence goes on whining how cruel fate is. A total basket case – which is what you get when the type is overdone.
There are great ones, though. I'll take brooding Batman over sensational Superman anytime. In western culture, black may be associated with mourning, depression, goth etc. Yet there's no denying it beats red briefs worn over blue tights with a yellow belt. Byron may have thought of black as the color of melancholy, and Churchill described his depression as a black dog haunting him. African Americans certainly had something else in mind when they coined the phrase 'black is beautiful'. Ironically, blues music originated around the same time from the same African Americans, and 'having the blues' became a synonym for melancholy.
By the way, Churchill really did a number on dogs unfortunate enough to be born with a black coat. Theirs are the highest numbers in animal shelters and people are more afraid of black animals in general than of ones with light colored fur. They have good reason to feel blue! (Even if it is not Churchill's fault.)
Besides many superb black things out there (dogs, ravens, Chevy Impalas) my association concerning color runs something like: bat – Batman – hero – hunter – vampire hunter – Blade – what was that paper I read on hetero-normative-agendas for heroes? Anyway, the Byronic hero wasn't discussed in the paper. What was discussed, however, was how the black hunter on Supernatural breaks the normative rules and how anyone who does that gets marginalized and/or killed, also the female hunter Kate Argent on Teen Wolf. Which sucks if you consider it from this point of view.
The author was right, the argument plausible, I just never saw it that way. Before, I was glad Gordon (the black guy) failed in his mission, because he wanted to kill Sam, and I never liked that bitch Kate, but sided with the werewolves, which you're supposed to do on Teen Wolf. If you think about black people and women being put in their place by the roles they are assigned – bad guys who are in the wrong – the sweet taste of victory turns sour.
Back to the top(ic): Byron wasn't a rich recluse like Bruce Wayne. More of a headline-grabbing Clark Kent, he sold his writing to earn a living. Byron's bloodline may have died out, but his brainchildren became blueprints that fathered offspring galore: Batman (before he rises), Dracula (almost redundant to mention, since Byron's vampire is Dracula's predecessor), Eric Draven (rhymes with Edgar the Raven, lol) and Gaiman's Sandman.
Atara Stein wrote a book on Byronic heroes in modern culture, in case you're interested. It was criticized harshly by Peter Cochran from the Byron society, but so far no one has published a better study with the same focus. Thorslev's book is thorough, but outdated. I'll give you the citation below in a minute, just let me wrap this up: Though I love Byron, his suffering is sometimes too much for my taste and I could easily dispense with Manfred, Lara, or The Deformed Transformed. When it comes to love lost, Go no more a-roving is a concise masterpiece and still among my favorites. (Yes, I am that shallow and won't ever dare to show my face at a Byron conference again.) Also Don Juan, because he makes me laugh.
Adam Kem Yerima: Saving innocents: Tracing the human monster hunter' hetero-normative agenda from the 1970s to today. Wayne State University Dissertations. 2016.
Atara Stein: The Byronic Hero in Film, Fiction, and Television. Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press. 2004.
Peter Thorslev: The Byronic hero. Types and prototypes. Minneapolis, The University of Minnesota Press. 1962.
There are great ones, though. I'll take brooding Batman over sensational Superman anytime. In western culture, black may be associated with mourning, depression, goth etc. Yet there's no denying it beats red briefs worn over blue tights with a yellow belt. Byron may have thought of black as the color of melancholy, and Churchill described his depression as a black dog haunting him. African Americans certainly had something else in mind when they coined the phrase 'black is beautiful'. Ironically, blues music originated around the same time from the same African Americans, and 'having the blues' became a synonym for melancholy.
By the way, Churchill really did a number on dogs unfortunate enough to be born with a black coat. Theirs are the highest numbers in animal shelters and people are more afraid of black animals in general than of ones with light colored fur. They have good reason to feel blue! (Even if it is not Churchill's fault.)
Besides many superb black things out there (dogs, ravens, Chevy Impalas) my association concerning color runs something like: bat – Batman – hero – hunter – vampire hunter – Blade – what was that paper I read on hetero-normative-agendas for heroes? Anyway, the Byronic hero wasn't discussed in the paper. What was discussed, however, was how the black hunter on Supernatural breaks the normative rules and how anyone who does that gets marginalized and/or killed, also the female hunter Kate Argent on Teen Wolf. Which sucks if you consider it from this point of view.
The author was right, the argument plausible, I just never saw it that way. Before, I was glad Gordon (the black guy) failed in his mission, because he wanted to kill Sam, and I never liked that bitch Kate, but sided with the werewolves, which you're supposed to do on Teen Wolf. If you think about black people and women being put in their place by the roles they are assigned – bad guys who are in the wrong – the sweet taste of victory turns sour.
Back to the top(ic): Byron wasn't a rich recluse like Bruce Wayne. More of a headline-grabbing Clark Kent, he sold his writing to earn a living. Byron's bloodline may have died out, but his brainchildren became blueprints that fathered offspring galore: Batman (before he rises), Dracula (almost redundant to mention, since Byron's vampire is Dracula's predecessor), Eric Draven (rhymes with Edgar the Raven, lol) and Gaiman's Sandman.
Atara Stein wrote a book on Byronic heroes in modern culture, in case you're interested. It was criticized harshly by Peter Cochran from the Byron society, but so far no one has published a better study with the same focus. Thorslev's book is thorough, but outdated. I'll give you the citation below in a minute, just let me wrap this up: Though I love Byron, his suffering is sometimes too much for my taste and I could easily dispense with Manfred, Lara, or The Deformed Transformed. When it comes to love lost, Go no more a-roving is a concise masterpiece and still among my favorites. (Yes, I am that shallow and won't ever dare to show my face at a Byron conference again.) Also Don Juan, because he makes me laugh.
Adam Kem Yerima: Saving innocents: Tracing the human monster hunter' hetero-normative agenda from the 1970s to today. Wayne State University Dissertations. 2016.
Atara Stein: The Byronic Hero in Film, Fiction, and Television. Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press. 2004.
Peter Thorslev: The Byronic hero. Types and prototypes. Minneapolis, The University of Minnesota Press. 1962.
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