A Study Guide for Lord Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Lord Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Aug 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535836203

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The Destruction of Sennacherib

Lord Byron

1815

Introduction

Byron’s The Destruction of Sennacherib was originally published in his 1815 book Hebrew Melodies, which included poems written to be set to adaptations of traditional Jewish tunes. The poem is based on a brief story in 2 Chronicles 32:21 that records in one sentence the defeat of the Assyrians by God’s Angel of Death. What details are missing in the biblical version, however, Byron provides: through metrical invention, description, powerful imagery, and parallelism the poet makes the dismal scene come to life. The destruction of the Assyrian invaders by the Angel of Death is not given any religious significance by Byron; instead, he concentrates on seeing the scene clearly, imagining it so specifically that the reader can see the foam coming from the dying horse’s mouth, and the withered, distorted bodies of the Assyrian army. Byron also uses similes based on natural processes—summer turning to fall, snow melting, armor rusting—to suggest the transitory nature of all