Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" provided a great deal of material for the growing genre of book reviews to debate. One issue that critics argued about was the very purpose of the poem. Some thought that the main point was to recount the horrors of war; the passages about the Battle of Talavera are certainly vivid. Others thought that the focus of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" was to describe the beautiful sights of Europe to those who could not travel. Byron's telling of Zitza is just one example of this travel log quality: "Rock, river, and mountain, all abound, And bluest skies that harmonize the whole: Beneath, the distant torrent's rushing sound Tells where the volumed cataract doth roll Between those hanging rocks, that shock yet please the soul" (427-432, p.110). Yet the poem lacks a moralizing tone that would go with the awfulness of war, and it lacks the objective tone and clarity of time and place that would go with a travel log. Ultimately, the confessional, romantic, unconventional epic "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" serves to criticize the world of Byron's time.
             Byron does this in several ways. One noticeable tactic is the abundant comparisons between current times and the past, which seem to imply that once a perfect society existed: "Greece! Change thy lords, thy state is still the same; Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine years of shame" (727-728, p. 121). The comparison between ancient and current times explains the lengthy description of the Battle of Telavera: it isn't to point out the evils of violence but to compare Telavera with battles of the past, which were heroic and fought with hand-to-hand combat, not with machines.
             Byron also contrasts human violence with vivid descriptions of natural beauty. While all mention of humanity is fairly negative, every passage on the landscapes of each region portray na
             ...