The sonnet On the Castle of Chillon is a Byronic glorification of the spirit of liberty that the poet perceives enshrined in the castle of Chillon. Here the great Genevase patriot, Bonnivard, was kept imprisoned under the command of a despotic authority. The central argument of the poem is struck in this glorification of the spirit of liberty that is found prominently manifested in the dark dungeons of the castle of Chillon. There a true patriot was kept confined by in a tyrant’s fetters.
Lord Byron (in the poem ‘On the Castle of Chillon‘) looks upon this spirit of liberty as imperishable, inviolable, rather eternal in its grace and glory. Nothing can kill this spirit, no oppression can bind it in chains. Indeed, no force can imprison the spirit of liberty or keep it in confinement under strict restraint. After all, the spirit of liberty dwells in the very heart of those who stand and fall in the cause of the free and freedom.
To Byron’s impulsive feeling, the spirit of liberty is best realized and grasped by the true lovers of liberty, the great patriots of a land, who suffer for the cause of the freedom of their mother country. When the brave patriots and uncompromising lovers of liberty are enchained and brutally treated in a dark, damp, dungeon, the spirit of liberty asserts its right in a forceful voice. The fire of freedom then spreads from one corner of a country to another, from one heart of the country to another. The sufferings of the great patriots—their martyrdom-touch the country and the countrymen and stir them to action to win back their freedom, their long-cherished birthright, so ruthlessly taken away by their cruel conquerors. In the castle of Chillon was once kept imprisoned Bonnivard, a Genevase patriot. To Byron, this has become a holy place because of the presence there of that great patriot as an enchained and oppressed prisoner under the foreign exploiters. The floor and the pavement of the castle were turned hallowed by the footsteps of Bonnivard, the imprisoned patriot, who paced up and down in his lonely cell.
Byron’s theme is, no doubt, the spirit of liberty. He finds this patent in the prison of Chillon, where the spirited, patriotic Bonnivard was kept confined by the Duke of Savoy. That heroic prison of Chillon fully echoed the spirit of liberty with which Byron’s sonnet is concerned. The concluding portion of the poem is a clarion call to the prison of Chillon as a holy place that defies God to defy the ruthless tyrannical persecutors and conquerors.
“…May none those marks efface !
For they appeal from tyranny to God.”
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