Byron burning
Byron knew, more than any author before him, the power of an ellipsis. Foreshadowing twentieth-century theorists such as Wolfgang Iser, who posited that it is primarily the reader who creates a poem’s...
View ArticleIsn’t it Byronic?
“Blessings on his experience!” cried the poet. “Ask him these questions”: Did he never play at Cricket or walk a mile in hot weather – did he never spill a dish of tea over his testicles in handing...
View ArticleWicked but fun
When history is itself drama, narrative runs into difficulty. Complex battles, dry statecraft and the monotony of everyday life can all benefit from the added lustre that storytelling brings. The...
View ArticleOn with the dance
“Byronic”, as any A-level student of English literature will tell you, means Heathcliff. It means the Earl of Rochester. Alienated from both self and society, the Byronic hero broodingly declares,...
View Article‘I rattle on exactly as I talk’
Jerome McGann has written many books of literary criticism over the past fifty or so years, and none of them is boring. His instincts are thoroughly scholarly, but at the same time he is a celebratory...
View ArticleDeath marches on
Every age has its apocalypse. The mid-twentieth century had nuclear annihilation, the twenty-first expects environmental catastrophe. Fearing the collapse of society, the early nineteenth century...
View ArticleA chameleon life
Byron’s death, 200 years ago on April 19, was as fraught with contradictions as his life. With a reputation as one of history’s greatest playboys, he died a committed freedom fighter in the Greek War...
View Article‘Thy name, oh Byron …’
The centenary of Byron’s death in 1924 was celebrated extensively in Greece, where a four-day commemoration was organized by the University of Athens. The English poet and dramatist John Drinkwater...
View ArticleNever the twain shall meet
There is one direct reference to Lord Byron in Jane Austen’s surviving correspondence, when she writes to her sister, Cassandra, on March 5, 1814: “I have read the Corsair, mended my petticoat, &...
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