Is Christian Grey Channeling Lord Byron?
The stilted language of Christian Grey, of Fifty Shades of Grey, has me wondering if he is, in fact, a vehicle for the spirit of Lord Byron.
E.L. James,the author of FSG, a West London housewife and former TV exec, married to an academician and screenwriter (who edited her books), lives and was educated in the land of Byron. Ms. James has admitted that the story of obsessive love and dominance and submission is her own fantasy. However, it is highly doubtful she has spent time in the company of twentysomething Seattle billionaires (if there are any). Rather, her sexual fantasies would have been forged by likes of such romantic figures as Lord Byron, and his contemporaries Percy Shelley, and Keats.
I am a native of America's Pacific Northwest, Christian Grey's fictional stomping grounds, and know well how those guys walk, talk, think,and act - and Christain Grey would be laughed out of the states of Washington and Oregon, had he ever existed. And, let's be honest, most women would prefer to be held captive in Byron's gothic castle than in a sterile Seattle penthouse.
Clearly, Christian is of a different breed, land, and era. Perhaps the time of Lord Byron, who was a brilliant poet, war hero, and notorious naughty boy whose aristocratic excesses included incest, and the seduction at age nine by his nurse, Mary Gray. A descendant of "the wicked Lord Byron", who was known to be eccentric and violent, Byron gave over his beloved ancentral home, Newstead Abbey, in 1803 due to financial problems, and stayed there as a tenant of Lord Grey.
E.L. James began writing "Fifty Shades of Grey" as fan fiction of Twilight, so the character of Christian was based on a the character of Edward, who (as written) is well over a century old. Byron was a highly popular poet, and leader of the English romantic movement, in the early 1800s, and was said to have fallen into an abyss of sensuality before departing for Greece to redeem himself and fall to a greater cause.
She walks in Beauty is one of his most famous poems - note the reference to "a heart whose love is innocent","all that's best in dark and bright", and "one the more shade".
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One the more shade , one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
I have felt an affinity for Byron since I touched his name, carved by his own hand into a Greek column outside Athens. "Fifty Shades of Grey was written after The House on Black Lake, and my blogs on obsessive, possessive love, and other similar romantic topics were hot on the search engines when the author wrote Fifty Shades. Is it possible James also channeled my name, Anastasia, and "the scene with the belt" from "The House on Black Lake" during research for her novel?
Anastasia Blackwell
Please feel free to e-mail me regarding any questions or thoughts regarding the themes and issues of my novel.