Speaker
Just because a speaker may share certain autobiographical similarities with its creator, the poet, does not necessarily mean that they are one and the same. Much depends on the broader context of the entire body of work: is the writer’s verse routinely autobiographical or is the autobiographical content of a certain poem an anomaly compared to the rest of his canon? In the case of Lord Byron, both the larger contextual relation and the details of this poem itself all serve to situate the general consensus that speaker is Byron and this is very much an autobiographical document. In fact, there is also agreement that this is the very last poem ever written by Byron before his tragically early death.
And then there are facts of the case: January 22 is the date of Byron’s birth in 1788 and adding 36 to that number produces 1824 which is the year of Byron’s death. Therefore, even though it is almost always a tricky proposition to definitively implicate the poet himself as the speaker within a poem, in this case it seems a safe bet. The main character here—the only character—is Lord George Gordon Byron expressing some of his final thoughts in a state of depression over growing older and recognizing the diminishing power of his legendary physical magnetism.
