Michael O'Neill
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198122852
- eISBN:
- 9780191671579
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198122852.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism, Poetry
This chapter discusses performative intensity in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. Of the former poem it is argued that the text frequently persuades us we are in touch with the self that ...
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This chapter discusses performative intensity in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. Of the former poem it is argued that the text frequently persuades us we are in touch with the self that wishes to die to itself and end up as text. Don Juan is read — for all its anti-illusionism and hostility to Romantic pretension — as ultimately upholding the claims of poetry as a mode of knowing, or not knowing. Byron's comic epic sends demystifiers of poetry packing through a challenging, aesthetically seductive combination of relentless self-consciousness and linguistic inventiveness.Less
This chapter discusses performative intensity in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. Of the former poem it is argued that the text frequently persuades us we are in touch with the self that wishes to die to itself and end up as text. Don Juan is read — for all its anti-illusionism and hostility to Romantic pretension — as ultimately upholding the claims of poetry as a mode of knowing, or not knowing. Byron's comic epic sends demystifiers of poetry packing through a challenging, aesthetically seductive combination of relentless self-consciousness and linguistic inventiveness.
Jonathan Sachs
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195376128
- eISBN:
- 9780199871643
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195376128.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter evaluates the use of Roman precedent in Byron's understanding of the decline of literature and literary standards, of ancient civilization, and of the self. In his Letter to John Murray, ...
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This chapter evaluates the use of Roman precedent in Byron's understanding of the decline of literature and literary standards, of ancient civilization, and of the self. In his Letter to John Murray, Byron uses ancient Roman precedents and the transition from republic to empire to construct a model of literary decline, one which he then applies to the contemporary scene. Byron's invocation of Roman precedents in the Pope controversy to revalue negatively the Romantic movement shows Byron reaching behind his dissatisfaction with Romantic poetics to invoke a Roman standard. The same emphasis on decline seen in Byron's advocacy of Pope also forms a dominant theme in Childe Harold, canto four. Here, a focus on Byron's engagement with classical Roman authors and the decline of the Roman republic shows how Byron's sense of decline is more than self‐mythologizing and represents instead a post‐Waterloo historical consciousness. Together, both sections affirm the centrality of Rome for Byron's sense of self and for his understanding of literary history, while also revealing uneven and dissonant qualities within the category “Romantic” itself.Less
This chapter evaluates the use of Roman precedent in Byron's understanding of the decline of literature and literary standards, of ancient civilization, and of the self. In his Letter to John Murray, Byron uses ancient Roman precedents and the transition from republic to empire to construct a model of literary decline, one which he then applies to the contemporary scene. Byron's invocation of Roman precedents in the Pope controversy to revalue negatively the Romantic movement shows Byron reaching behind his dissatisfaction with Romantic poetics to invoke a Roman standard. The same emphasis on decline seen in Byron's advocacy of Pope also forms a dominant theme in Childe Harold, canto four. Here, a focus on Byron's engagement with classical Roman authors and the decline of the Roman republic shows how Byron's sense of decline is more than self‐mythologizing and represents instead a post‐Waterloo historical consciousness. Together, both sections affirm the centrality of Rome for Byron's sense of self and for his understanding of literary history, while also revealing uneven and dissonant qualities within the category “Romantic” itself.
Mary O’Connell
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781781381335
- eISBN:
- 9781781384916
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381335.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter describes John Murray’s publication strategy for Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and discusses the initial tumult of success and fame which greeted the appearance of the first two cantos of ...
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This chapter describes John Murray’s publication strategy for Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and discusses the initial tumult of success and fame which greeted the appearance of the first two cantos of the poem. This is followed by an analysis of the opening cantos of Childe Harold which highlights the extent to which Byron dwells on the fear of being forgotten.Less
This chapter describes John Murray’s publication strategy for Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and discusses the initial tumult of success and fame which greeted the appearance of the first two cantos of the poem. This is followed by an analysis of the opening cantos of Childe Harold which highlights the extent to which Byron dwells on the fear of being forgotten.
Anthony Howe
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846319716
- eISBN:
- 9781781380918
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846319716.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter confronts directly the question of what Byron thought about poetry and how he assessed its importance. How far can we go, that is, towards setting out a Byronic Poetics? It considers ...
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This chapter confronts directly the question of what Byron thought about poetry and how he assessed its importance. How far can we go, that is, towards setting out a Byronic Poetics? It considers Byron’s place within the context of post-Lockean poetics, reassess Byron’s shift from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage to Don Juan, and attempts to follow, in the latter poem, a series of reflexive metaphors through which Byron projects his intuitions about his art.Less
This chapter confronts directly the question of what Byron thought about poetry and how he assessed its importance. How far can we go, that is, towards setting out a Byronic Poetics? It considers Byron’s place within the context of post-Lockean poetics, reassess Byron’s shift from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage to Don Juan, and attempts to follow, in the latter poem, a series of reflexive metaphors through which Byron projects his intuitions about his art.
Mary Hurst
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846319709
- eISBN:
- 9781781380925
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846319709.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter explores the theological undercurrents in Byron’s verse, focusing on the subject of infernal ghosts and the condition of melancholic boredom traditionally known as acedia. It argues ...
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This chapter explores the theological undercurrents in Byron’s verse, focusing on the subject of infernal ghosts and the condition of melancholic boredom traditionally known as acedia. It argues that, while we have come to see the dull violence of ennui as a wholly secular psychological state, it is in fact a silhouette of the Greek and Scholastic theological notion of acedia, which has been loosely translated from the term that describes a spiritual condition of the Desert Fathers, understood as ‘the noonday Demon’. A new reading of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, shows that the spiritual origins of acedia provide a vocabulary that foreshadows aspects of Byron and his poetry, which secular terms such as melancholy and ennui do not. Thus, an analysis of Byron’s descriptions of boredom and ennui, cannot get very far without the spiritual vocabulary of demons.Less
This chapter explores the theological undercurrents in Byron’s verse, focusing on the subject of infernal ghosts and the condition of melancholic boredom traditionally known as acedia. It argues that, while we have come to see the dull violence of ennui as a wholly secular psychological state, it is in fact a silhouette of the Greek and Scholastic theological notion of acedia, which has been loosely translated from the term that describes a spiritual condition of the Desert Fathers, understood as ‘the noonday Demon’. A new reading of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, shows that the spiritual origins of acedia provide a vocabulary that foreshadows aspects of Byron and his poetry, which secular terms such as melancholy and ennui do not. Thus, an analysis of Byron’s descriptions of boredom and ennui, cannot get very far without the spiritual vocabulary of demons.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846316432
- eISBN:
- 9781846317163
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317163.007
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Lord Byron's late arrival in Geneva was not in accord with his habitual, temperamental preference for a leisurely mode of travel. The Shelley party took the direct route to Switzerland by going ...
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Lord Byron's late arrival in Geneva was not in accord with his habitual, temperamental preference for a leisurely mode of travel. The Shelley party took the direct route to Switzerland by going through France. Byron opted to sail from Dover to Ostend, making his way to Cologne before following the Rhine down to the Swiss border. With him were William Fletcher, who had worked on the Newstead estate, Robert Rushton, the son of one of his tenants, a Swiss called Berger, and John Polidori, his own private physician. From Murten, Byron probably took the road to Lausanne and then made his way towards Geneva along the lake, arriving at the Hôtel d'Angleterre on May 25, 1816, exactly a month after he had embarked on his journey. During his travel, Byron was able to compose a poem entitled Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.Less
Lord Byron's late arrival in Geneva was not in accord with his habitual, temperamental preference for a leisurely mode of travel. The Shelley party took the direct route to Switzerland by going through France. Byron opted to sail from Dover to Ostend, making his way to Cologne before following the Rhine down to the Swiss border. With him were William Fletcher, who had worked on the Newstead estate, Robert Rushton, the son of one of his tenants, a Swiss called Berger, and John Polidori, his own private physician. From Murten, Byron probably took the road to Lausanne and then made his way towards Geneva along the lake, arriving at the Hôtel d'Angleterre on May 25, 1816, exactly a month after he had embarked on his journey. During his travel, Byron was able to compose a poem entitled Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
Mary O'Connell
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781781381335
- eISBN:
- 9781781384916
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381335.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
Byron and John Murray: A Poet and His Publisher is the first comprehensive account of the relationship between Byron and the man who published his poetry for over ten years. It is commonly seen as a ...
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Byron and John Murray: A Poet and His Publisher is the first comprehensive account of the relationship between Byron and the man who published his poetry for over ten years. It is commonly seen as a paradox of Byron’s literary career that the liberal poet was published by a conservative publishing house. It is less of a paradox when, as this book illustrates, we see John Murray as a competitive, innovative publisher who understood how to deal with his most famous author. The book begins by charting the early years of Murray’s success prior to the publication of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and describes Byron’s early engagement with the literary marketplace. The book describes in detail how Byron became one of Murray’s authors, before documenting the success of their commercial association and the eventual and protracted disintegration of their relationship. Byron wrote more letters to John Murray than anyone else and their correspondence represents a fascinating dialogue on the nature of Byron’s poetry, and particularly the nature of his fame. It is the central argument of this book that Byron’s ambivalent attitude towards professional writing and popular literature can be illuminated through an understanding of his relationship with John Murray.Less
Byron and John Murray: A Poet and His Publisher is the first comprehensive account of the relationship between Byron and the man who published his poetry for over ten years. It is commonly seen as a paradox of Byron’s literary career that the liberal poet was published by a conservative publishing house. It is less of a paradox when, as this book illustrates, we see John Murray as a competitive, innovative publisher who understood how to deal with his most famous author. The book begins by charting the early years of Murray’s success prior to the publication of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and describes Byron’s early engagement with the literary marketplace. The book describes in detail how Byron became one of Murray’s authors, before documenting the success of their commercial association and the eventual and protracted disintegration of their relationship. Byron wrote more letters to John Murray than anyone else and their correspondence represents a fascinating dialogue on the nature of Byron’s poetry, and particularly the nature of his fame. It is the central argument of this book that Byron’s ambivalent attitude towards professional writing and popular literature can be illuminated through an understanding of his relationship with John Murray.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846316432
- eISBN:
- 9781846317163
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317163.011
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Lord Byron and the Shelley party were not contented at the Hôtel d'Angleterre, not least because it was expensive and housed many inquisitive compatriots. They soon found places to live in Cologny, ...
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Lord Byron and the Shelley party were not contented at the Hôtel d'Angleterre, not least because it was expensive and housed many inquisitive compatriots. They soon found places to live in Cologny, not far from each other. Byron chose a particularly beautiful house known as the villa Diodati and moved in there four days after signing an agreement to rent the property on June 6, 1816. Ten days before he transferred to Diodati, the Shelley party had, with the help of John Polidori, found a house almost directly down the hillside from the villa and much closer to the lake. Whereas his relations with Claire Clairmont had deteriorated, Byron's friendship with Percy Bysshe Shelley only got better. Shelley was able to temporarily transform Byron into a Wordsworthian worshipper of nature, as seen in the latter's poem entitled Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.Less
Lord Byron and the Shelley party were not contented at the Hôtel d'Angleterre, not least because it was expensive and housed many inquisitive compatriots. They soon found places to live in Cologny, not far from each other. Byron chose a particularly beautiful house known as the villa Diodati and moved in there four days after signing an agreement to rent the property on June 6, 1816. Ten days before he transferred to Diodati, the Shelley party had, with the help of John Polidori, found a house almost directly down the hillside from the villa and much closer to the lake. Whereas his relations with Claire Clairmont had deteriorated, Byron's friendship with Percy Bysshe Shelley only got better. Shelley was able to temporarily transform Byron into a Wordsworthian worshipper of nature, as seen in the latter's poem entitled Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846316432
- eISBN:
- 9781846317163
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317163.008
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Percy Bysshe Shelley died in July 1822, but Lord Byron would follow him two years later. Byron settled in Venice in November 1816 and fell in love with the twenty–one–year–old Teresa Guiccioli. He ...
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Percy Bysshe Shelley died in July 1822, but Lord Byron would follow him two years later. Byron settled in Venice in November 1816 and fell in love with the twenty–one–year–old Teresa Guiccioli. He continued to produce new work, finishing Manfred after his arrival in Italy followed by a whole series of more austere dramas, including the highly controversial Cain. Despite his evolving thought on how poetry should be written, Byron completed the fourth and final canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage while he was in Venice. He also showed strong interest in the outbreak of the Greek war of independence in 1821. In July 1823 he went to Greece. On April 19, 1824 he died of fever at the age of thirty–six.Less
Percy Bysshe Shelley died in July 1822, but Lord Byron would follow him two years later. Byron settled in Venice in November 1816 and fell in love with the twenty–one–year–old Teresa Guiccioli. He continued to produce new work, finishing Manfred after his arrival in Italy followed by a whole series of more austere dramas, including the highly controversial Cain. Despite his evolving thought on how poetry should be written, Byron completed the fourth and final canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage while he was in Venice. He also showed strong interest in the outbreak of the Greek war of independence in 1821. In July 1823 he went to Greece. On April 19, 1824 he died of fever at the age of thirty–six.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846316432
- eISBN:
- 9781846317163
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317163.015
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
While Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley were away on the trip round the lake of Geneva, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Claire Clairmont were left to keep themselves busy at Diodati. Mary had begun ...
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While Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley were away on the trip round the lake of Geneva, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Claire Clairmont were left to keep themselves busy at Diodati. Mary had begun writing Frankenstein and made fair copies of Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. John Polidori was visiting the two women on a daily basis and often dined with them. Upon his return Byron would experience a profound change in his social life due to his encounter with Germaine de Staël, who had returned from Italy to her château at Coppet. Madame de Staël was a major celebrity in Europe owing to her father's fame, her suffering at the hands of Napoleon of France, and her political activity. Her warm welcome and her ability to make Byron feel completely at home made the poet continue to visit Coppet, in spite of the occasional encounter with people such as Elizabeth Hervey.Less
While Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley were away on the trip round the lake of Geneva, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Claire Clairmont were left to keep themselves busy at Diodati. Mary had begun writing Frankenstein and made fair copies of Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. John Polidori was visiting the two women on a daily basis and often dined with them. Upon his return Byron would experience a profound change in his social life due to his encounter with Germaine de Staël, who had returned from Italy to her château at Coppet. Madame de Staël was a major celebrity in Europe owing to her father's fame, her suffering at the hands of Napoleon of France, and her political activity. Her warm welcome and her ability to make Byron feel completely at home made the poet continue to visit Coppet, in spite of the occasional encounter with people such as Elizabeth Hervey.
