From: [log in to unmask] (Mark Baker)
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Fragment Prefacing 2001 Edition of Don Juan

He would to Heaven that he were so much Better--
  Than he was hyperactive psychopath--
Emotionally warmer, not a debtor,
  Brought up by mum and dad on stable path
(Or found by Irish doc, Beside Health Centre,
  Who'd break his patterned disregard for math)--
He says--the future'll know my malady--
A wandering outlaw--named ADHD.



> The Telegraph, London
> April 16, 2001
>
> LORD BYRON, the poet who scandalised England with his hellraising
> exploits, was actually a psychopath, according to new research by a
> leading psychiatrist. George Gordon, the sixth Baron Byron, was famed
> throughout Europe for the dramatic personal style of his poetry and his
> biting satires. He also became notorious for his dissolute way of life,
> propelled by drink and drugs, which led to a broken marriage, claims that
> he slept with hundreds of women - and debts equivalent to at least
> £600,000 today.
>
> Literary scholars have argued that Byron was a tortured genius, struck
> down with regular bouts of depression. Now, a detailed study of his
> behaviour has led to a less romantic diagnosis: that the poet exhibited
> so-called anti-social personality disorder - the technical term for a
> psychopath.
>
> Professor Michael Fitzgerald, a psychiatrist at the Beside Health Centre
> in Dublin, reached his conclusion after examining accounts of Byron's
> life. Born in 1788, the poet had an unstable upbringing - seen as a key
> factor in the development of psychopathy.
>
> The abandoned son of John "Mad Jack" Byron, a wastrel who fled to France
> to avoid debts, Byron was raised by his emotionally volatile mother
> Catherine Gordon, and appears to have been denied emotional warmth at a
> critical stage in his development. As a child, he showed symptoms of
> emerging psychopathy: habitual lying, a callous disregard for others,
> truanting and random acts of cruelty - including sticking pins into his
> mother as she prayed in chapel.
>
> He was expelled from Harrow because of his contempt for authority, and
> spent only a term at Cambridge before descending into a life of debauchery
> in London. After achieving fame at the age of 24 with his dramatic poem
> Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, he was able to indulge his passions to ever
> greater excess. He eventually fled England to escape debts and a ruined
> marriage. He settled in Italy, embarked on more affairs and made his
> extravagant life the source for his most famous work, the satirical poem
> Don Juan. After a spell helping the fight for Greek independence, he died
> of fever, aged 36.
>
> The poet's psychopathic behaviour may have begun as so-called attention
> deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) inherited from his ancestors, said
> Prof Fitzgerald. "When one examines his family tree, one finds plenty of
> rakes, spendthrifts, melancholics and eccentrics," he pointed out. "He had
> a tremendous appetite for sensation, and of course many persons with ADHD
> are novelty-seeking."
>
> By the time Byron reached adulthood, however, full-blown psychopathy had
> emerged. Prof Fitzgerald said: "There's no doubt he had a pervasive
> pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others. His
> impulsivity could be seen in his extreme promiscuity." Writing in the
> Journal of Medical Biography, Prof Fitzgerald argues that Byron's poetry
> may have benefited from his psychiatric problems. "Persons with ADHD can
> be highly creative."
>
> A leading authority on Byron, Prof Malcolm Kelsall, of Cardiff
> University's School of English, said such a mental condition tied in well
> with the themes of the poet's works. Prof Kelsall said: "The way he used
> language was tremendously subversive - he's a great rebel. That has made
> him tremendously attractive with revolutionary movements throughout
> Europe."
>








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