"""The Siege of Corinth"" is a tragic narrative poem first published in 1816. It was inspired by the Ottoman siege of the Venetian-held Acrocorinth in 1715. The poem is the fifth in the series of Byron's Oriental Romances or Heroic Tales - the other poems being ""The Giaour"", ""The Bride of Abydos"", ""The Corsair"", ""Lara"" and ""Parisina"". In addition to detailing the resistance of the Venetian garrison to the fierce Ottoman onslaught, the poem sees the night before the final attack through the eyes of one of the Ottoman commanders, Alp, a Venetian renegade. In former times, Alp, then known as Lanciotto, had sought the hand of the beautiful Francesca, daughter of Minotti, the current governor of the Christian garrison. His suit refused, and further, being falsely denounced by anonymous accusers, Alp repudiates his nationality, religion, and name and enlists to fight under the banner of Venice's Ottoman enemy. Francesca appears to Alp the night before the final assault and entreats him to forgive his accusers, return to Christianity and spare the Venetian stronghold. "
Author
George Gordon Byron (invariably known as Lord Byron), later Noel, 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale FRS was a British poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Amongst Byron's best-known works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty, When We Two Parted, and So, we'll go no more a roving, in addition to the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential, both in the English-speaking world and beyond. Byron's notabilty rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured upper-class living, numerous love affairs, debts, and separation. He was notably described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". Byron served as a regional leader of Italy's revolutionary organization, the Carbonari, in its struggle against Austria. He later travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died from a fever contracted while in Messolonghi in Greece.
