Lord Byron: time to reassess?

[Mashinka]

In my view Lord Byron has always been a fascinating figure but his works are all but forgotten in the U.K. If his name is remembered at all it is only when some shoddy TV drama appears about his prolific love life. Sexual athlete he may have been, but he was also the greatest poet of his day and a fanatical freedom fighter who died fighting for Greek independence. He was actually disabled by today's standards, a fact that is rarely mentioned. The only place he is still remembered with respect is in Greece where he is positively revered with streets named after him (Vironoos - there is no letter B in modern Greek) and Byron statues in prominent locations.

I enjoyed reading this article in today's Independent that has been published to coincide with a new collection of Byron material becoming available.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_brit...icle2961242.ece

Does anyone else share my interest in Byron?

[cubanmiamiboy]

Does anyone else share my interest in Byron?

I read Lord Byron's poetry when i was a teen, but haven't revisited him ever since. Maybe is time for myself to "reassess" his works...

[Drew]

I think the article somewhat exagerates the eclipse of Byron's reputation in academic circles--though that may partly be the result of attending only to British scholarship and ignoring anything written by Americans. In fact a number of major studies have appeared. But even in the context of British scholarship, Byron has attracted attention for at least some decades now...

The exhibit being discussed may (or may not) well be groundbreaking, but it is only in relation to the sort of claims cited in the article (Byron as comparable to Napoleon--something HE certainly thought) that one would describe Byron as in eclipse academically. I don't feel quite equiped to talk about how popular he remains to a wider literary audience or how much his image lives in popular culture. I remember that a few years back the Highlander television series had an episode organized around Byron/Shelley in Geneva -- also the topic of a Ken Russell film. Both examples that were...um...just dreadful. But even in bookstores with small poetry sections (in the U.S.) I often notice that the shelves stock at least one volume of Byron which makes me think the books must be selling since these stores are not committed to poetry per se.

[dirac]

Mashinka, thank you for posting the article and raising the topic. It may be that the piece (and the director of the collection, as quoted in the article) are just overstating matters in a reasonable effort to drum up interest in the show. I’m inclined to agree with Drew – I have the impression that Byron studies and biographies appear on a fairly regular basis, in this country anyway, going by what I see in bookstores and book reviews (those few that are left).

I don’t have any need to reassess him, though – like you, Mashinka, I’ve always loved Byron.

also the topic of a Ken Russell film. Both examples that were...um...just dreadful.

Ah, yes – “Gothic.” Interesting idea, good cast, total waste. Nice hearing from you, Drew.

[Mel Johnson]

Fashions come and go in appreciating writers of all sorts. For a while, Wordsworth was almost an epithet ("Pretty Wordsworth"). A.E. Housman (sorry, Leigh) and Walter de la Mare can still provoke retching in me. But one thing that British critics still have is the knowledge not so much of his relations with his contemporaries, but his antecedents. His father was a Royal Navy Captain who was called "Mad Jack" Byron. His father had been known as "Bad Jack" and he was a Vice-Admiral! The "George Gordon" in the poet's name was for a maternal grandfather, but it also made him a namesake of Lord George Gordon, whose political exploits in the 1770s made the New Left of the 1960s look like milksops. He was a religious conservative, but there was no issue upon which he could not take both sides, or invent a side no one had thought of before! Whatever this family was in Britain, it spelt trouble!

[bart]

I think the article Mashinka cites is quite clever in avoiding a conclusion:

Should we have more respect for Byron's literary works?

Yes...

* He was a formative influence on some of the greatest European artists and thinkers, including Nietzsche, Berlioz and Liszt

* His literary talents have been overshadowed by his colourful sexual activities

* It took 145 years after his death for a memorial to him to appear in Westminster Abbey

No...

* Both Keats and Wordsworth were doubtful about Byron's poetic talents

* Some experts suggest that describing him as the greatest European of the 19th century is overstating the case

* His sexual exploits surely exceed his political or literary ones – he claimed to have bedded 162 married women while in Venice

I'd be interested in knowing which works continue to be read by more than literature majors.

Decades ago, my senior year English teacher assigned Prisoner of Chillon and a few short poems like "She walks in Beauty" and "We'll go no more a-roving." Since then I've read parts of Don Juan and (I admit this) flipped through a volume of Childe Harold in a used book shop. As for Corsair, I have a hard enough time sitting through the entire ballet, let alone trying to read the poem.

On the other hand, I've read and enjoyed lots of books about Byron and his circle, both non fiction and fiction. Byron's life -- friendships, sexual relationships, politics, aesthetic enthusiasms, libertarian politics, and his fight for the independence of Greek -- is what facinates and moves most educated people today. Not actually reading his verse.

[bart]

For those who may have missed it, Helene has posted a link Julie Kavanagh's piece in The Guardian. It includes the following about Nureyev's involvement with Byron -- whom he appears to have seen as a kind of alter ego to himself, and specifically with Manfred, his composite Byron ballet.

[H]is production of Byron's Manfred two years later was even more overloaded with ideas - the testimony of an autodidact unable to resist displaying his knowledge.

The summer of 1979 was Nureyev's period of Method preparation. While touring the Greek islands, reading Byron continuously, he had persuaded his host, the shipping millionaire Perry Embiricos, to end their cruise on the south coast of Turkey to recreate his own Childe Harold journey. Like Lord Byron, who adored the lush textures and colours of eastern clothes, Nureyev had succumbed to Turkomania, scouring the bazaars for antique fabrics, pelisses, caps and burnooses, and, in imitation of Delacroix's portrait of the poet in his gold and crimson Albanian costume, he arrayed himself in rich Turkish robes, his head imperially turbaned. Having experienced a similarly explosive kind of fame, vagabond lifestyle and passion for the exotic, Nureyev recognised an alter ego in Byron. The erotic charge of the eastern tales, their dark subversiveness, which aroused both mass adulation and secret fantasies, created a similar impact to the dancer's own Corsair; the description of Byron as "a wild mountain colt" is a fitting image of the young star. But to Nureyev, the most deeply felt link of all was the sense of alienation, "the feeling of belonging to no country", their inclination towards homosexuality having forced each in their turn "To seek abroad, the love denied at home".

Byron's long poem Manfred defines the cult of alienation at the heart of 19th-century Romanticism. Nureyev had dismissed the character of Manfred as "a pompous bore", and admitted that he found most of Byron's writing more difficult than Shakespeare (giving up on Childe Harold after reading two-thirds). Gosling, who was writing the libretto, began steering Nureyev towards the letters and journals, as well as Don Juan, which delighted the dancer. They decided that the one-act work, commissioned by the Paris Opera Ballet, should showcase not only Manfred, but "the whole Byron", becoming (in Gosling's words) "a highly personal amalgam [of] real characters and imaginary ones, the fanciful creations of the poet, real relationships and dream visions". ...

If you want to find out what happened, here's the LINK

[Mel Johnson]

Rather like Gilbert's lyric for Colonel Calverley in Patience:

...Little of Manfred, but not very much of him.

[dirac]

their inclination towards homosexuality having forced each in their turn "To seek abroad, the love denied at home".

Not hardly.

[papeetepatrick]

On the other hand, I've read and enjoyed lots of books about Byron and his circle, both non fiction and fiction. Byron's life -- friendships, sexual relationships, politics, aesthetic enthusiasms, libertarian politics, and his fight for the independence of Greek -- is what facinates and moves most educated people today. Not actually reading his verse.

This reminds me of Casanova, who is perhaps more memorable as a character, persona--but the place you find the best documents are in the Memoirs. You get a feel of the ease at which he was always finding himself in bed with women (including at one point, his daughter); as if it is little more framed or prepared than breathing or just walking into this room or that room. I cared to read only one, but there's something to them. Fellini notably hated Casanova--no children in his life, etc.--so made a movie with Donald Sutherland, which I've never seen, and don't especially want to. If Casanova's life was as original as fame makes it seem, he may not be admirable in many ways, but a movie made by someone who thinks only badly of his hero is the sort of thing that has never interested me.

Of Byron, I confess to knowing nothing beyond the usual high school 'Prisoner of Chillon', and it hasn't even occurred to me to look into him.

[Mashinka]

A quick search for Lord Byron on Amazon turned up endless titles about his life together with books of his letters, but nothing of his actual poetry. If seems to me that Byron himself still fascinates but his actual work does not.

As for Corsair, I have a hard enough time sitting through the entire ballet, let alone trying to read the poem.

Apart from supplying the names of the cast, the poem Corsair has nothing to do with the ballet at all. It's one of his shorter works and a very good read though more Errol Flynn than Marius Petipa.

I never knew Rudolf Nureyev had a Byron fixation, a great pity it resulted in a ballet, as his Manfred was a ghastly mess I seem to remember. And what's this about a Delacroix portrait? Gericault I believe was the most famous artist that actually painted him and although Delacroix was a fan, I don't think Byron ever sat for him. Anyway, here is a link to Delacroix's tribute to Corsair depicting Gulnara rescuing Conrad from prison (and certain death)

http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObj...0&handle=li

[dirac]

Byron's life -- friendships, sexual relationships, politics, aesthetic enthusiasms, libertarian politics, and his fight for the independence of Greek -- is what facinates and moves most educated people today. Not actually reading his verse.

Well....not this educated person – I was drawn to the life from the poetry, which I first read in school. I happened to be in a Barnes and Noble this weekend and noted, as Drew did above, that a selection of Byron's poetry was on the shelf.

[bart]

I was drawn to the life from the poetry, which I first read in school. I happened to be in a Barnes and Noble this weekend and noted, as Drew did above, that a selection of Byron's poetry was on the shelf.

I see that I will have to rethink and revisit this matter. It's actually good news that people are still reading Byron, especially when conventional poetic fashions seemsto have moved elsewhere.

If one were to recommend Byron's poetry to someone unfamiliar with it -- or turned off by it long ago -- with which poems would you start? What would you say to encourage him or her to give it a try? And what would you definitely leave out?

[Drew]

Don Juan is widely considered the greatest and most readable (I agree) and though very long it is episodic and can be read in more manageable sections, one canto at a time. Beppo, which the article mentions, is like a try-out for Don Juan and is also a pretty good poem to start with.

If one is interested in the more 'broody' Byron I myself prefer Cain to Manfred, but that may be an eccentric opinion. Both are cosmic 'closet' dramas--dramas not written for the stage. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage made him famous but arguably doesn't become genuinely good reading until canto III.

Still, Don Juan, is by far and away the greatest poem he wrote.

There really has been a fair amount of critical writing on Byron's poetry and plays--though the stuff I know about is for academic audiences and uneven in quality. I imagine that some of these works don't register on Amazon at all. And, of course, a great deal that is published on Byron is published not as a book on Byron per se but as a chapter in another book or else as an essay published in an academic journal. (A lot of university presses will no longer publish 'single author' books.)

Just to give some examples of critical works that have appeared on Byron's poetry (or big books that included chapters on Byron)--From the 1990's: Terence Hoagwood, Byron's Dialectic, Jerome Christensen, _Lord Byron's Strength_. Christensen also talks about Cain in a book he wrote that appeared more recently _Romanticism at the End of History_. James Chandler's _England in 1819_ includes a whole chapter on Don Juan. Michael Simpson, _Closet Performances_ talks about the plays of Byron and Shelley. Daniel Watkins also wrote a book on Byron's plays; Saree Makdisi _Romantic Imperialism_ ,has a chapter on Byron and Nigel Leask wrote a book on British Romanticism and the East which has a chapter on Byron. Books published 2000 and since include: Jane Stabler, _Byron, Poetics, and History_, Alan Rawes, _Byron's Poetic Experimentation_, Stephen Cheeke, _Byron and Place_. Jerome McGann has been writing on Byron for years and in 2002 published a collection called _Byron and Romanticism_... This isn't a remotely exhaustive list, so there really is stuff out there that shows an interest in Byron's writing not just his life.

[bart]

Thankss, Drew. I will definitely get Don Juan and read it (aloud?) ... all the way through!

About your list of critical works on Byron, it's really quite nice to know that there are still publishers out there willing to issue this kind of work. I wonder whether there's anything out there to help the modern "common reader" (to use Woolf's term) connect to this poet?

[Mashinka]

I hope it’s okay to revive this thread, but I found a huge double page article on Lord Byron in today’s Independent written to coincide with a revival of Howard Brenton’s play ‘Bloody Poetry’:

http://www.independe...ar-6945638.html

Actually I think the article is all over the place but a reminder that Byron was once the champion of the poor is timely in present circumstances. The summing up of his life is in my opinion incomplete without mention of his remarkable daughter Ada Lovelace, the early pioneer of computers, no mention either that Byron married her mother for money, though he and his family paid dearly for that action as Annabella Milbanke was as vile a woman as ever drew breath.

In general I’m not a fan of Howard Brenton’s work, but I’ll try to get along to ‘Bloody Poetry’ this time around.

[dirac]

It's definitely all right to revive the thread, Mashinka, thanks. I am also not a Brenton fan but I would certainly go to see this if only because of the Byron angle.

I would also disagree with you, in part, about the Princess of Parallelograms. She is indeed most unsympathetic but that doesn't mean Byron treated her very well. Truly a catastrophic union. (I have also read that Ada's contributions to the early history of computers have been somewhat exaggerated, although she remains an important figure in that history regardless. But I don't know enough about it to judge.)

[Kerry1968]

I really don't believe Byron is terribly neglected. He is still taught in undergraduate English courses as one of the big five: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats and Blake being the others. Critical editions of Byron's poetry appear in print, as do scholarly monographs, popular biographies and even the occasional magazine article (like the one you linked).

On the other hand, Thomas Moore, Walter Scott, Robert Burns et al, are truly neglected, and by that I mean totally ignored by scholars, and - it seems to me - rapidly fading from the collective memory.

[Mashinka]

It's definitely all right to revive the thread, Mashinka, thanks. I am also not a Brenton fan but I would certainly go to see this if only because of the Byron angle.

I would also disagree with you, in part, about the Princess of Parallelograms. She is indeed most unsympathetic but that doesn't mean Byron treated her very well. Truly a catastrophic union. (I have also read that Ada's contributions to the early history of computers have been somewhat exaggerated, although she remains an important figure in that history regardless. But I don't know enough about it to judge.)

My views on Annabella stem not from the short lived marriage to Lord B. but rather her behaviour towards her daughter, niece and sister in law. She sought to control poor Ada all through her brief life, positively gloating over Ada's horrific terminal illness. After Ada's marriage she turned her attention to the vulnerable Medora, Byron's niece (possibly daughter) whilst running a hate campaign against that girl's inadequate mother, Augusta. I've read a number of books about Byron and his family and frankly the woman emerges as a monster and even in the book that is most sympathetic to Lady B. (The kindness of Sisters: Annabella Milbanke and the Destruction of the Byrons by David Crane) you finish up loathing her. She milked her five minutes of fame through marrying Byron for all it was worth and the price he paid posthumously for her viciousness was for her to wreak havoc on the female members of his family. Today you can take out court orders to keep that type of woman away from you but the women of Byron’s family had no protection against her malice at all.

Ada is generally regarded as the world's first computer programmer and in her day was almost the only person to totally comprehend the work of Charles Babbage and his 'Analytical Engine' certainly her collaboration with him earns her a place in computer history. There is an excellent biography of Ada called The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason and Byron's daughter by Benjamin Woolley which goes into great depth about her work with Babbage. And Annabella is the villain of that book too.

[Mashinka]

I really don't believe Byron is terribly neglected. He is still taught in undergraduate English courses as one of the big five: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats and Blake being the others. Critical editions of Byron's poetry appear in print, as do scholarly monographs, popular biographies and even the occasional magazine article (like the one you linked).

On the other hand, Thomas Moore, Walter Scott, Robert Burns et al, are truly neglected, and by that I mean totally ignored by scholars, and - it seems to me - rapidly fading from the collective memory.

Kerry, as long as there are Scots drawing breath Robert Burns' memory will never fade.

[dirac]

It's been many years but as I recall Woolley was rather careful about the degree and nature of Ada's contribution (which certainly existed and was important, as I said). Annabella was certainly a horrid mother.

[Kerry1968]

I would agree, however, that Byron's longer works get left out of college surveys, and that narrative poems longer than "Rape of the Lock" generally don't get covered. Byron's best work is not easily excerpted or redacted, unlike "In Memoriam" for instance, whereas lyric poets writing in shorter forms are ideally suited for a 10 week college survey. It's the nature of the (university) beast. I remember years ago when the decision to omit Longfellow from the Heath Anthology of American Lit was made, there was quite a bit of controversy. Narrative poetry does not fare in the current pedagogical environment.

[dirac]

Byron's best work is not easily excerpted or redacted, unlike "In Memoriam" for instance, whereas lyric poets writing in shorter forms are ideally suited for a 10 week college survey.

Good point. And often courses use anthologies, which are also generally less friendly to longer forms.

[4mrdncr]

I recently saw a film (miniseries?) about Byron starring Jonny Lee Miller in the title role--so I think it was pretty recent. Of course, there was also "Lady Caroline Lamb" made in the late 1960's/70's. I later read a bio of her and her husband which briefly mentioned her affair with Byron. Other than that, my readings were limited to required poems in school, or skimming works at the local B&N.