02.14.10 -- Romantic -- the Acrostic

Lord Byron in Albanian dress painted by Thomas Phillips in 1813

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February 14, 2010

ACROSTIC, Puzzle by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, edited by Will Shortz

This Sunday’s acrostic draws its quotation from the opening paragraph of Byron in Love: A Short Daring Life by Edna O'Brien.

In this jaunty biography, O’Brien eschews considerations of Byron’s poetry to examine his amorous adventures, offering her reader the kind of fabulous anecdotes that made the poet a celebrity throughout Europe. A string of volatile relationships, interrupted only by bouts of gonorrhea or the onset of “the poetry mania,” began with his mother, who liked to taunt him about his clubfoot before smothering him with kisses. Women (and sometimes men) found his “combination of genius and Satanism” irresistible and, often, maddening: one thwarted paramour sent him a lock of her pubic hair “tinged with blood” and burned him in effigy. Out of O’Brien’s kinetic recounting of scandal after scandal, a sense of the poet’s pathos emerges: Byron did, at times, love deeply. But by eliding his literary personality O’Brien risks voyeurism. Copyright ©2008 The New Yorker

The quotation: BYRON WAS FIVE FEET EIGHT AND A HALF INCHES IN HEIGHT HAD A MALFORMED RIGHT FOOT CHESTNUT HAIR A HAUNTING PALLOR TEMPLES OF ALABASTER TEETH LIKE PEARLS AND AN ENCHANTEDNESS THAT NEITHER MEN NOR WOMEN COULD RESIST

The author’s name and the title of the work: EDNA OBRIEN BYRON IN LOVE

A. Apposite anagram of “tender names”, ENDEARMENTS
B. Entertainment from mutual funds (2 wds.), DUTCH TREAT
C. City section bordering Lake Pontchartrain (2 wds.), NINTH WARD
D. Gorgon-headed emblem of power, AEGIS
E. Hub mostly in Cook County, OHARE
F. City visible from Rachel’s Tomb, BETHLEHEM
G. Literary movement embodied by the subject of this puzzle’s quote, ROMANTICISM
H. “The story is extant, and writ in choice ITALIAN” (“Hamlet,” Act III)
I. Parts of a ushanka or chullo hat, EARFLAPS
J. Longtime jazz columnist for The Village Voice (2 wds.) NAT HENTOFF
K. Choice at a diner, BOOTH
L. Dialect explored by Leo Rosten, YINGLISH
M. Perhaps overdoing the school spirit (hyph.), RAH-RAH
N. Colloquially, made in an outmoded way (hyph.), OLD-FANGLED
O. Volatile solvent from petroleum, NAPHTHA
P. Gift fit for a King in Los Angeles? (2 wds.), ICE SKATES
Q. Pococurante, having an air of indifference, NONCHALANT
R. Sort inclined to socialism, say (hyph.), LEFT-WINGER
S. Those in a position to keep flies from landing, OUTFIELDERS
T. Zealous; passionate, VEHEMENT
U. Embrace, make one’s own; marry, ESPOUSE

The full paragraph -- Lord George Gordon Byron was five feet eight and a half inches in height, had a malformed right foot, chestnut hair, a haunting pallor, temples of alabaster, teeth like pearls, grey eyes fringed with dark lashes and an enchantments that neither men nor women could resist. Everything about him was a paradox, insider and outsider, beautiful and deformed, serious and facetious, profligate but on occasion miserly, and possessed of a fierce intelligence trapped however in a child’s magic and malices. What he wrote concerning the poet Robert Burns could easily serve as his own epitaph -- ‘tenderness, roughness -- delicacy, coarseness -- sentiment, sensuality … dirt and deity -- all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay’.

He was also a gigantic poet… 

Byron in Love: A Short Daring Life by Edna O'Brien -- W.W. Norton & Co., ISBN: 0393070115 -- 240 Pages

Lord Byron on His Deathbed, by Joseph-Denis Odevaere, c 1826

Click on image to enlarge.

Puzzle available on the internet at

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