adjective
Byronic
Dark, magnetic, brooding, emotionally troubled โ and usually self-aware about it.
Origin
From Lord Byron (1788โ1824) and the heroes of his poetry: handsome, intelligent, cynical, haunted by some secret guilt, attractive partly because dangerous. The 'Byronic hero' became a fixture of Romantic literature.
Modern usage
Said of brooding leading men in films and books โ Mr. Rochester, Heathcliff, Severus Snape, every prestige-TV antihero.
Tags
romance
antihero