THE BYRONIC HERO AS A CULTURAL ICON IN THE ROMANTIC PERIOD MARGARET DANIEL ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA i iin 898545ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, | am deeply grateful to God for giving me the strength, patience, determination, and will power to persevere in this long and challenging joumey of knowledge and enabling me to fulfil my dream. I also wish to thank my supervisor Dr. Sharifah Aishah bt. Osman for her dedication, immeasurable guidance and thought provoking insights throughout the duration of my research. Your useful comments and constructive criticisms have definitely helped me to become a more conscientious and confident researcher. I would also like to extend my gratitude to my family members who have also helped me out in one way or another especially my mother for being so understanding and putting up with my unpredictable work routine, my extremely patient brother Richard, and sister Christina for their technical assistance. Thank you so much, I truly appreciate it. I am also deeply indebted to my dear late uncle Luke Thava whose compassion and generosity of heart was truly amazing . I will always cherish your presence in my life - for the laughter and good times that we shared and especially for your care and support during my difficult ‘moments. Sadly, you did not live to see me complete this journey. My sincere thanks also to a very dear friend, Prof, Manjit Bhatia. Thank you for your intellectual comments, constructive criticisms not to mention your wacky sense of humour! I am especially grateful for the useful references recommended that have truly helped my in the course of my research. Thank you also for proof reading my work despite your busy schedule. You are a true friend indeed and I hope we can meet in person some day.Last but not least, this dissertation is dedicated to my dearest late father who has ‘been my constant source of inspiration and motivation. Your belief in me has inspired me to push myself to the limits and never to give up in my endeavours. You have taught me that nothing is impossible in life if we dare to dream... Thank you, father, I know I have made you proud. iiABSTRACT The literary phenomenon known as the English Romantic period emerged during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in England. The major poets collectively referred to as the “Romantics” consist of William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Perey Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. Byron’s originality and radical style, in particular, influenced not only the poets of his generation, but also those of the twentieth century. This study examines Byron’s conception of the Byronic Hero in his various literary works in order to explain the significance of this figure in Romantic literary culture, and to identify the various reasons for its enduring popularity as a cultural icon. It will focus on Byron’s portrayal of the hero in selected texts such as Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Manfred, and the Turkish Tales (The Giaour, The Corsair, The Bride of Abydos and Lara specifically), and will also draw upon Byron’s letters and journals, Much of the appeal of the Byronic hero lies in the unique social, political and historical conditions of the time, First, Byron’s own popularity as an author, coupled with the scandalous details of his personal life, naturally influenced the public reception of the Byronic hero. Frequently portrayed as strikingly good-looking, the Byronic hero was more importantly a courageous rebel who fought for justice and liberty for the oppressed. Byron’s biographical background is thus crucial to an understanding of the popularity of his heroes. Second, although the Byronic hero was endowed with many positive attributes, he had flaws and weaknesses like anyone else and was not afraid to expose them. This trait endeared him to readers who often iiisympathized with his suffering. Female readers in particular, who were becoming increasingly aware of their social and intellectual roles, found the hero's sensitivity towards women highly appealing, further fuelling the popularity of this character in English contemporary culture. In addition, the rise of the Byronic hero can be attributed to Byron's shrewd understanding of the demands of his literary audience. The growth of the literary market to include the media such as newspapers and reviews, for example, illustrates the emergence of an increasingly knowledgeable reading public. Those from the upper and middle classes especially, frequently demanded the latest and most fashionable texts in the market, a niche that was filled by Byron’s best-selling Turkish Tales. These tales, featuring the heroic exploits of the Byronic hero in exotic Eastem settings, captured the imagination of the reading public who craved for such excitement in their own lives. Finally, the Byronic hero served as a symbol of hope for the English masses suffering from the turbulent effects of the French Revolution. Byron was a staunch advocate of liberty and justice propagated by the early years of the French Revolution and an ardent admirer of Napoleon, who he regarded with high esteem for his role as liberator of the oppressed, his revolutionary idealism and his military prowess during the French Revolution. The reign of Napoleon during that time also made a deep impression on Byron, as seen in the revolutionary idealism of his own heroes. ‘Such was the popularity of the Byronic hero that it has inspired generations of readers and vriters throughout the world. Thus, by examining Byron’s various literary texts, letters and joumals, this study aims to provide insights into the significance of the Byronic hero as a popular cultural icon in the Romantic period. ivABSTRAK Fenomena kesusasteraan yang dikenali sebagai zaman Romantik Inggeris telah wujud pada lewat abad ke lapan belas dan awal abad ke sembilan belas di England. Penyair-penyair terkemuka yang secara kolektif digelar sebagai "Romantics" terdiri daripada William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron dan John Keats. Keaslian serta gaya penulisan Byron yang radikal bukan sahaja telah mempengaruhi penyair-penyair generasi beliau, malah juga penyair-penyair abad ke duapuluhan. Kajian ini akan meneroka rekaan watak-watak yang digelar "Byronic Hero" di dalam beberapa hasil karya sastera beliau untuk menerangkan kepentingan watak ini dalam kebudayaan kesusasteraan Romantik, serta mengenalpasti beberapa punca utama populariti "Byronic Hero" sebagai "cultural icon." Kajian ini akan berfokas kepada penampilan hero tersebut dalam beberapa teks-teks terpilih seperti Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Manfred dan “Turkish Tales’ (khususnya The Giaour, The Corsair, The Bride of Abydos, dan Lara). Ta juga akan meneliti surat-surat serta jumal-jumal hasil penulisan Byron. Daya tarikan hero-hero Byron berhubung kait dengan situasi sosial, politik dan sejarah yang unik pada ketika itu. Pertamanya, populariti Byron sendiri sebagai penulis ditambah pula dengan kisah hidup peribadi beliau, sememangnya telah mempengaruhi penerimaan orang ramai terhadap "Byronic hero." Sering digambarkan sebagai seorang jejaka yang tampan, watak "Byronic hero" juga merupakan seorang pemberontak yang berani berjuang demi menegakkan keadilan dan kebebasan terhadap golongan yang ditindas. Justeru itu, latar belakang kisah hidup Byron temyata amat penting sekali untuk memahami punca populariti hero-herorekaannya. Kedua, walaupun Byronic hero dianugerahkan dengan banyak sifat-sifat positif, beliau juga mempunyai kekurangan atau kelemahan seperti manusia Jain malah tidak takut untuk menonjolkan Kelemahan-kelemahannya itu. Ciri ini telah menyebabkan beliau disenangi oleh pembaca-pembaca yang sering berasa simpati dengan kesengsaraannya. Pembaca wanita, khususnya, yang semakin menyedari peranan sosial dan intelektual mereka, mendapati keprihatinan hero terhadap wanita amat menarik sekali dan ini menaikkan lagi populariti watak tersebut dalam budaya kontemporari Inggeris. Disamping itu, peningkatan popularitinya juga disebabkan keprihatinan Byron tentang kehendak peminat sastera, Perkembangan pasaran kesusasteraan yang merangkumi media seperti akhbar dan rencana, umpamanya, mempamirkan kewujudan suatu golongan pembaca yang berpengetahuan. Mereka dari golongan atasan dan pertengahan khususnya sering meminta bahan-bahan teks yang terkini di pasaran dan kehendak ini sering dipenuhi oleh teks “Turkish Tales’ yang laris i pasaran, Kisah-kisah yang menampilkan pengembaraan “Byronic hero” berlatar belakangkan dunia ketimuran yang menarik, telah memukau imaginasi golongan pembaca yang dahagakan keseronokan seumpama itu dalam kehidupan harian mereka, ‘Akhir sekali, watak "Byronic hero” juga adalah suatu simbol harapan bagi masyarakat di England yang sering dilanda kesengsaraan akibat Revolusi Peranchis. Byron merupakan seorang pejuang kebebasan dan keadilan yang sering dilaungkan ketika zaman awal Revolusi Peranchis serta seorang peminat setia Napoleon Bonarparte yang disanjungnya atas peranan Napoleon sebagai pejuang kebebasan golongan tertindas, sikap idealisme revolusinernya serta kehebatan tenteranya ketika zaman Revolusi Peranchis. Pemerintahan Napoleon pada ketika itu juga telah memberikan suatu kesan yang mendalam pada Byron, seperti yang dapat dilihat dalam sikap idealisme revolusiner watak-watak utama Byron sendiri. Begitu hebatnya vipopulariti "Byronic hero" sehingga beliau telah menjadi sumber inspirasi kepada pelbagai generasi golongan pembaca mahupun penulis di serata dunia. Oleh demikian, melalui penelitian pelbagai teks, surat-surat dan jumal-jurnal beliau, kajian ini bertujuan untuk memberi pendedahan mengenai signifikasi "Byronic hero” sebagai "cultural icon" di zaman Romantik. viiCONTENTS PAGE Acknowledgements i Abstract iti Abstrak v Contents viii CHAPTER ONE ‘The Byronic Hero in the Romantic Period: Overview and Context... CHAPTER TWO Byron's Biographical Background and its Influence on the Conception of the Byronic Hero 17 CHAPTER THREE ‘The Literary Marketplace of the Nineteenth Century and the Portrayal of the Byronic Hero... 49 CHAPTER FOUR The Political Setting of the Nineteenth Century and its Influence on the Conception of the Byronic Hero. 81 CHAPTER FIVE Conclusion...... 1s Works Cited..... 124 viiiABSTRACT The literary phenomenon known as the English Romantic period emerged during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in England. The major poets collectively referred to as the “Romantics” consist of William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Perey Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. Byron’s originality and radical style, in particular, influenced not only the poets of his generation, but also those of the twentieth century. This study examines Byron’s conception of the Byronic Hero in his various literary works in order to explain the significance of this figure in Romantic literary culture, and to identify the various reasons for its enduring popularity as a cultural icon. It will focus on Byron’s portrayal of the hero in selected texts such as Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Manfred, and the Turkish Tales (The Giaour, The Corsair, The Bride of Abydos and Lara specifically), and will also draw upon Byron’s letters and journals, Much of the appeal of the Byronic hero lies in the unique social, political and historical conditions of the time, First, Byron’s own popularity as an author, coupled with the scandalous details of his personal life, naturally influenced the public reception of the Byronic hero. Frequently portrayed as strikingly good-looking, the Byronic hero was more importantly a courageous rebel who fought for justice and liberty for the oppressed. Byron’s biographical background is thus crucial to an understanding of the popularity of his heroes. Second, although the Byronic hero was endowed with many positive attributes, he had flaws and weaknesses like anyone else and was not afraid to expose them. This trait endeared him to readers who often iiisympathized with his suffering. Female readers in particular, who were becoming increasingly aware of their social and intellectual roles, found the hero's sensitivity towards women highly appealing, further fuelling the popularity of this character in English contemporary culture. In addition, the rise of the Byronic hero can be attributed to Byron's shrewd understanding of the demands of his literary audience. The growth of the literary market to include the media such as newspapers and reviews, for example, illustrates the emergence of an increasingly knowledgeable reading public. Those from the upper and middle classes especially, frequently demanded the latest and most fashionable texts in the market, a niche that was filled by Byron’s best-selling Turkish Tales. These tales, featuring the heroic exploits of the Byronic hero in exotic Eastem settings, captured the imagination of the reading public who craved for such excitement in their own lives. Finally, the Byronic hero served as a symbol of hope for the English masses suffering from the turbulent effects of the French Revolution. Byron was a staunch advocate of liberty and justice propagated by the early years of the French Revolution and an ardent admirer of Napoleon, who he regarded with high esteem for his role as liberator of the oppressed, his revolutionary idealism and his military prowess during the French Revolution. The reign of Napoleon during that time also made a deep impression on Byron, as seen in the revolutionary idealism of his own heroes. ‘Such was the popularity of the Byronic hero that it has inspired generations of readers and vriters throughout the world. Thus, by examining Byron’s various literary texts, letters and joumals, this study aims to provide insights into the significance of the Byronic hero as a popular cultural icon in the Romantic period. ivABSTRAK Fenomena kesusasteraan yang dikenali sebagai zaman Romantik Inggeris telah wujud pada lewat abad ke lapan belas dan awal abad ke sembilan belas di England. Penyair-penyair terkemuka yang secara kolektif digelar sebagai "Romantics" terdiri daripada William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron dan John Keats. Keaslian serta gaya penulisan Byron yang radikal bukan sahaja telah mempengaruhi penyair-penyair generasi beliau, malah juga penyair-penyair abad ke duapuluhan. Kajian ini akan meneroka rekaan watak-watak yang digelar "Byronic Hero" di dalam beberapa hasil karya sastera beliau untuk menerangkan kepentingan watak ini dalam kebudayaan kesusasteraan Romantik, serta mengenalpasti beberapa punca utama populariti "Byronic Hero" sebagai "cultural icon." Kajian ini akan berfokas kepada penampilan hero tersebut dalam beberapa teks-teks terpilih seperti Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Manfred dan “Turkish Tales’ (khususnya The Giaour, The Corsair, The Bride of Abydos, dan Lara). Ta juga akan meneliti surat-surat serta jumal-jumal hasil penulisan Byron. Daya tarikan hero-hero Byron berhubung kait dengan situasi sosial, politik dan sejarah yang unik pada ketika itu. Pertamanya, populariti Byron sendiri sebagai penulis ditambah pula dengan kisah hidup peribadi beliau, sememangnya telah mempengaruhi penerimaan orang ramai terhadap "Byronic hero." Sering digambarkan sebagai seorang jejaka yang tampan, watak "Byronic hero" juga merupakan seorang pemberontak yang berani berjuang demi menegakkan keadilan dan kebebasan terhadap golongan yang ditindas. Justeru itu, latar belakang kisah hidup Byron temyata amat penting sekali untuk memahami punca populariti hero-herorekaannya. Kedua, walaupun Byronic hero dianugerahkan dengan banyak sifat-sifat positif, beliau juga mempunyai kekurangan atau kelemahan seperti manusia Jain malah tidak takut untuk menonjolkan Kelemahan-kelemahannya itu. Ciri ini telah menyebabkan beliau disenangi oleh pembaca-pembaca yang sering berasa simpati dengan kesengsaraannya. Pembaca wanita, khususnya, yang semakin menyedari peranan sosial dan intelektual mereka, mendapati keprihatinan hero terhadap wanita amat menarik sekali dan ini menaikkan lagi populariti watak tersebut dalam budaya kontemporari Inggeris. Disamping itu, peningkatan popularitinya juga disebabkan keprihatinan Byron tentang kehendak peminat sastera, Perkembangan pasaran kesusasteraan yang merangkumi media seperti akhbar dan rencana, umpamanya, mempamirkan kewujudan suatu golongan pembaca yang berpengetahuan. Mereka dari golongan atasan dan pertengahan khususnya sering meminta bahan-bahan teks yang terkini di pasaran dan kehendak ini sering dipenuhi oleh teks “Turkish Tales’ yang laris i pasaran, Kisah-kisah yang menampilkan pengembaraan “Byronic hero” berlatar belakangkan dunia ketimuran yang menarik, telah memukau imaginasi golongan pembaca yang dahagakan keseronokan seumpama itu dalam kehidupan harian mereka, ‘Akhir sekali, watak "Byronic hero” juga adalah suatu simbol harapan bagi masyarakat di England yang sering dilanda kesengsaraan akibat Revolusi Peranchis. Byron merupakan seorang pejuang kebebasan dan keadilan yang sering dilaungkan ketika zaman awal Revolusi Peranchis serta seorang peminat setia Napoleon Bonarparte yang disanjungnya atas peranan Napoleon sebagai pejuang kebebasan golongan tertindas, sikap idealisme revolusinernya serta kehebatan tenteranya ketika zaman Revolusi Peranchis. Pemerintahan Napoleon pada ketika itu juga telah memberikan suatu kesan yang mendalam pada Byron, seperti yang dapat dilihat dalam sikap idealisme revolusiner watak-watak utama Byron sendiri. Begitu hebatnya vipopulariti "Byronic hero" sehingga beliau telah menjadi sumber inspirasi kepada pelbagai generasi golongan pembaca mahupun penulis di serata dunia. Oleh demikian, melalui penelitian pelbagai teks, surat-surat dan jumal-jurnal beliau, kajian ini bertujuan untuk memberi pendedahan mengenai signifikasi "Byronic hero” sebagai "cultural icon" di zaman Romantik. viiCONTENTS PAGE Acknowledgements i Abstract iti Abstrak v Contents viii CHAPTER ONE ‘The Byronic Hero in the Romantic Period: Overview and Context... CHAPTER TWO Byron's Biographical Background and its Influence on the Conception of the Byronic Hero 17 CHAPTER THREE ‘The Literary Marketplace of the Nineteenth Century and the Portrayal of the Byronic Hero... 49 CHAPTER FOUR The Political Setting of the Nineteenth Century and its Influence on the Conception of the Byronic Hero. 81 CHAPTER FIVE Conclusion...... 1s Works Cited..... 124 viiiCHAPTER ONE The Byronic Hero in the Romantic Period: Overview and Context ‘The nineteenth century, one of the most prolific and renowned periods in the history of English literature, saw the emergence of numerous poets, novelists, essayists and critics of great importance and individuality. It was ‘posthumously’ known as the Romantic period. The term “romantic” was first applied to art by Friedrich von Schlegel in 1798 but only became known during the nineteenth-century European artistic movement. It was a revolt against the aesthetic that changed art, poetry and literature. Its values of emotion, intuition, imagination and individualism contrasted with the ideals of restraint, reason and harmony that were promoted by classicism.' The term was later used as a label for works that emphasized the subjective and spiritual as well as everything that seemed fundamentally modern rather than classical. It was not until the 1860s, however, that “the Romantics” became an accepted collective term for the poets Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley and Keats. During the later part of the nineteenth century, the historical phenomenon known as the English Romantic Movement became an accepted term in English literature. Elizabeth Wasserman states that Byron was the most dominant figure among the Romantic poets, the Romantic movement’s most flamboyant figure, and a “revolutionary spirit”? who stumbled into writing or rather discovered his literary gift by accident (20). However, his lack of temperament for politics forced Byron to abandon his desire for a potential career in politics. This was just as well, for asa poet, Byron inscribed a radical vein in poetry. Byron’s impact during his lifetime was such thathis poems served as a major source of inspiration for generations of Romantics from Alfred de Musset in France to Alexander Pushkin in Russia as well as fellow English romantic poet Perey Bysshe Shelley.? It is in view of Byron’s important contribution to the history of nineteenth-century English literature that this research is carried out. This study examines Byron’s conception of the Byronic Hero in his various literary works in order to explain the significance of this figure in Romantic literary culture and to identify the various reasons for its enduring popularity as a cultural icon. It explores the reasons for the significant impact Byron had on the English reading public during his time, specifically during the early 1800s. Through this discussion, I hope to show the various ways in which the Byronic hero served as a powerful cultural icon in the nineteenth century. In the second chapter, I discuss the influence of Byron’s biographical background to the conception of the Byronic hero as seen in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Cantos 1 and 2 (1812) and Manfred (1817), 1 have selected these poems because of the autobiographical content found in them. Besides, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was Byron's first literary claim to fame and the poem that introduced the concept of the Byronic hero. 1 will analyse how the events in Byron’s own life had influenced the conception of the Byronic hero. Ever since he was a boy, Byron had to deal with feelings of insecurity not only because of his deformed foot but also as a result of his strained relationship with his mother. He did not experience the joys of growing up in a secure and loving family environment. Later on, Byron would compensate for this by indulging in numerous affairs with women including wealthy and titled married women as well as a rumoured incestuous affair with his half-sister. His public scandals were a source of ridicule and made him a social outcast in his own country, and forced him to leave England in exile. These personalconflicts in addition to several traumatic incidents namely the death of close friends as well as his own mother left deep emotional scars on Byron, Byron felt like a condemned man and this led to feelings of frustration, loneliness and rejection. Having no other outlet to vent his frustrations, Byron transferred his inner turmoil into his poems. The Byronic hero was a rebel who did not possess heroic virtues in the usual sense but instead had to struggle with many inner conflicts within him just like any other ordinary man, Despite his “bigger than life” persona, his appeal partly lay in the fact that he was not perfect. He was a flawed figure who was not afraid to expose human weaknesses. Readers sympathised with the hero's misery. feelings of rejection, guilt, melancholy and remorse as he endured personal turmoil and suffering In the third chapter, I examine the development of the literary culture of the nineteenth century, which resulted in the growth of the reading public. I will look at the growth of the literary market during the nineteenth century in the form of newspapers, ‘magazines, reviews, and other periodicals and how they cultivated the reading habit among the middle classes, who later came to be perceived as the most dominant section of the reading public. The rapid growth of newspapers allowed the middle-class reading public a means of achieving social status since reading newspapers was a way by which an individual could affirm his place in society. The emergence of periodicals also helped to inform middle clas: ‘ety, who was considered the opinion-making group on all things social. The educational limitations of the middle-classes forced them to regard the reviews as an assured basis for their reading as the reviews not only told them what to read, but what to think as well (Martin, 32). In addition, I will explain how the growth of the reading public also included the working class. The public’s disillusionment with the ideals of theFrench Revolution brought about the need for a sense of relief and escapism from the reality of political instability and widespread unemployment and poverty that had stricken the masses. Byron’s tales of fantasy provided this escapism for the reading public. The exciting and highly entertaining narratives of the Turkish Tales gave pleasure to the reading public and helped lift their spirits at a time of confusion and uncertainty in the post-war period. The huge success of the tales affirmed the Byronic Hero’s popularity among the masses. They indicated society's fascination for romantic, courageous, swashbuckling heroes. Readers were also drawn to the exotic Eastem setting featuring foreign characters such as Turks and Moslems. I will also discuss the appeal of the Byronic hero to women readers in particular. The Byronic hero was described as striking and good-looking. The combination of dashing good looks and courageous disposition captured the hearts of women who hero- worshipped and fantasized about him as their own romantic, swash-buckling knight in shining armour. His gentle and chivalrous nature towards the women in his poems further fuelled his popularity and endeared him to women readers. This is especially important in a patriarchal society where women were confined to a subservient role in society and frequently not accorded much respect and dignity by their male counterparts. Byron's portrayal of his heroes’ sensitivity towards women in his poems gave solace to women readers. In addition, as a result of a division of classes in society brought about by political and economic changes, women of the elite and upper middle classes could afford leisurely pursuits and frequently indulged in reading as a fashionable pastime, as well as to stimulate the mind. The emergence of women writers who dominated the literary scenealso influenced the predominantly female reading public’s perception of women’s role in society. They became increasingly aware of their inferior status in the male dominated society. Thus, reading became a means of securing a place among the well educated and literate upper middle class society at the time.’ In this chapter, I will focus on two of Byron’s Turkish Tales namely The Giaour (1813) and The Corsair (1814) by virtue of them being the most famous and best-selling poems among his Eastern tales. In the fourth chapter, I examine the political setting of the Romantic period, specifically the role of the French Revolution and the figure of Napoleon Bonaparte, and demonstrate how they influenced Byron’s conception of the Byronic hero. It is a well- known fact that Byron held great esteem for Napoleon and followed the French Emperor's progress enthusiastically. Ever since his boyhood, Byron had idolized Napoleon for his role as liberator, his revolutionary spirit, and military prowess (Clubbe, 44). Napoleon's influence on Byron's writings is evident especially between the period 1814 ~ 1816 in poems such as Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Ode to Napoleon and other shorter poems dedicated to Napoleon and the Turkish Tales. While initially favouring him, Byron later refers to him as a “despot” and a “tyrant” in his poems. Byron’s admiration for Napoleon gradually tumed to disillusionment as a result of the latter’s subsequent failures and his final defeat at the battle of Waterloo. Byron’s respect for him as a great revolutionary was deeply shaken. The defeat of Napoleon had brought no improvement in the condition of the masses. After 1815 there was a deep slump, which paralysed trade and brought widespread unemployment and poverty (Carter & Mc Rae, 218). I will argue that the various characteristics of the Byronic hero demonstrate how he served as a symbol of hope for the people who were suffering from the after effects of the French Revolution. The haanByronic hero gave strength to the people to face their own frustrations and deal with these political and social changes in their lives. The discussion in this chapter will be based on political events and the figure of Napoleon in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Cantos 1 - 2 (1812) and Cantos 3 - 4 (1816 - 1818), the Turkish Tales namely The Giaour (1813), The Corsair (1814) The Bride of Abydos (1813) and Lara (1814) as well as the dramatic poem Manfred (1817). In addition to analysing these various texts in this study, I will also ‘examine Byron’s letters and journals to further illuminate his thoughts and actions in relation to his poems. ‘The concept of culture in the Romantic period ‘According to Alan Woods, the concept of “culture” in England began in the late eighteenth century and developed in the nineteenth century.’ The French Revolution was a fundamental turning point in world history. New ideas that sprang from the Revolution were a source of inspiration for all that was alive and vibrant in European society. They attracted the best of the intellectuals, artists, writers, philosophers and composers such as Kant, Hegel, Beethoven, Goethe, Shelley and Byron. Huge social and political changes were taking place at the time, The structure of European society was altered from a society of birth to a society of status, that is from a society in which power and prestige depended upon noble descent to one in which power and prestige depended upon wealth, Power was seized by the wealthy, property-holding middle class known as the bourgeoisie. Simultaneously, the Industrial Revolution improved the position of the middle class by increasing their numbers and multiplying their wealth.’ There was, however, a growing conflict between creative and productive social forces formulated for materialism by Karl Marx as “alienation,” and forthe Romantic idealist tradition by Thomas Carlyle. The overall aesthetic quality of life, compared with the previously supposed rural idyll, was threatened by the machine-like excesses of industrial society. The machine was seen as a replacement to man, and culture was no longer a mediatory force between man and nature but between man and machine Genks, 7). By contrast, literary culture has been and continues to be viewed as a collective body of arts and intellectual work within any society. The term “culture” here invokes a state of intellectual and moral development in society. Culture is generally defined as the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity including music, literature and painting. Samuel T. Coleridge believed that culture formed the basis of organization and development of human worth, self-expression and authenticity. He regarded the “imagination” as the essential “driving force which dissolves, diffuses, dissipates the very world that threatens to engulf it. Culture becomes the counterforce in the face of the destructive tendencies of industrialization and mass society.” ® Likewise, Rene Wellek, defines the romantic poets” cultural viewpoint in the following terms: They all [Romantic poets] see the implication of imagination, symbol, myth and organic nature, and see it as part of the great endeavour to overcome the split between subject and object, the self and the world, the conscious and the unconscious. This is the central creed of the great Romantic poets in England, Germany and France. It is a closely coherent body of thought and feeling. Indeed, Romanticism in literature is a tendency to seek an ideal aesthetic world in fancy and imagination and to express it in an individualized and sentimental form, appealing more to the needs of the emotions than to reason. It is a tendency toward inspiration and away from discipline in the writer's approach to his materials, It is also a rebellion against whatever is orthodox and regulated or a rebellion against the past.In 1820, the French writer Charles Nodier summed up the artist’s plight as ‘one where, “Romantic poetry springs from our agony and our despair. This is not a fault in our art, but a necessary consequence of the advances made in our progressive society.”"” MH. Abrams in The Mirror and The Lamp (1953) argues that the romantic writer is distinguished from the eighteenth-century writer by a changed perception of what a poem is and what it does. According to him, for the classicist, “the work of art resembles a mirror, which is passively mimetic or reproductive of existing ‘reality’; for the Romantic, it resembles a lamp, which throws out images originating not in the world but in the poet. Art becomes subjective rather than objective, and intuitive rather than rationally planned” (97). The Romantics developed ways of writing which tried to incorporate the individual experience in forms and language that were intended to represent everyday speech, and that were more accessible to the general reader. The most notable in this effort is Wordsworth, In his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1800), he expresses his desire to write poetry in the language of common men. Wordsworth opposed the rationalist content of the Augustan poets in favour of a return to imagination and emotion. He also conceived poetry as “more than the mere correct versification of philosophical truths but the initiator of truth itself.”"" Thus, to be a poet meant a tremendous responsibility as one who gave life its meaning. To the Romantic poets, poetry became a vocation in life. As Shelley claimed in his famous Defense of Poetry, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”'?The Byronic Hero as a Cultural Jeon As discussed earlier, the term “culture” invokes a state of intellectual and moral development in society. The theory of culture also incorporates the idea of perfection, a goal or aspiration of individual human achievement (Jenks, 16). Thus, a person who resembles this idea of perfection is naturally elevated to iconic status, hence the term “cultural icon.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines cultural icon as “a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol, especially of a culture or movement that is considered worthy of admiration or respect.”!? Frequently, the individuals are eclipsed by the fame and they become something bigger than themselves as well as a symbol of a belief or cultural movement. Some important individuals in history who have become cultural icons of the twentieth tury include Albert Einstein - a scientific genius; Adolf Hitler ~ a personification of evil; Marilyn Monroe — the symbol of movie star glamour; and Princess Diana — a beautiful and elegant royal figure. Martin Hansen states that heroes tend to exemplify desirable traits, actions, ideals and values (Massick, 109). Hansen also says that the hero serves as a cultural icon that can be a unifying force whom people share a common identity and interest with.'* Similarly, the Byronic hero — so named because it evolved primarily due to Lord Byron's writings in the nineteenth century - is a cultural icon. According to Thorslev, the Byronic hero is one of the most prominent literary character types of the Romantic period: Romantic heroes represent an important tradition in our literature....In England we have a reinterpreted Paradise Lost, a number of Gothic novels and dramas...the heroic romances of the younger Scott, some of the poetry of Shelley, and the works of Byron. In all of these works the Byronic Hero is the one protagonist who in stature and in temperament best represents the [heroic] tradition in England. (189)The birth of the “Byronic Hero” was indeed a significant aspect of the new generation Romantic poets. The rise of Napoleon, the subsequent French Revolution and the repression that followed it, were the scenes in Europe during Byron’s time in the early 1800s. In the midst of the Industrial Revolution, many changes in social, economic and human relationships were taking place. A sense of disillusionment, hopelessness and frustration was felt by the younger generation of Romantic poets, including Byron and Shelley, as they came to terms with the failure of the revolutionary movement.'* As Shelley wrote in the Preface to The Revolt of Islam : On the first reverses of hope in the progress of French liberty, the sanguine eagemess for good overleapt the solution of these questions, and for a time extinguished itself in the unexpectedness of their result. Thus many of the most ardent and tender-hearted of the worshippers of public g00d have been morally ruined by what a partial glimpse of the events they deplored, appeared to shew as the melancholy desolation of all their cherished hopes. Hence gloom and misanthropy have become the characteristics of the age in which we live, the solace of a disappointment that unconsciously finds relief only in the wilful exaggeration of its own despair. This influence has tainted the literature of the age with the hopelessness of the minds from which it flows.'° Gloom and melancholy are also some of the characteristics found in the Byronic hero. The Byronic hero appealed to the ordinary people who felt disillusioned and dejected by the political turmoil which they could see around them, Readers identified with the heroes’ political struggle to fight for justice and liberty that were described in the poems. The defeat of Napoleon affected the economy in England which led to poverty and hardships. Unemployment rose as a result of discharged soldiers and sailors. The living standards of the masses suffered and affected the textile workers especially, Desperation and frustration drove the people to despair and lead to widespread violence in the streets.'” 10‘At the same time, the Industrial Revolution brought about the rise of capitalism which forced the rich to rob the peasants of their Jand and reduced them to starvation and beggary (Everest, 10). The Byronic hero gave a sense of hope to these people who felt oppressed and powerless in improving their social and economic status at that time. He was a passionate and courageous figure who fought for what he believed in a fearless manner and this idealization of the hero appealed to the disillusioned public. The Byronic hero's disregard for socially acceptable behaviour coupled with his unfailing willingness to fight for the freedom of the downtrodden contributed to his popularity. He was a larger than life hero and regarded as a nineteenth-century cultural icon or celebrity. Christopher Hitchens observes that if modern celebrity has a nineteenth-century ancestor, it is certainly Byron’s combination of the role of the poet with that of man of action. In terms of his intellectual powers and humanitarian qualities, the Byronic hero was far more virtuous than any average person in society.'® Byron, together with Walter Scott, who rose to fame with Marmion (1808), were the most popular writers at the time, Eventually, Byron succeeded Scott as the most fashionable author then because his heroes were seen to be a representation of himself. Just like his heroes, Byron was also a rebel and a social outcast whose deep compassion for the oppressed and thé downtrodden explained his continued fame. In 1812, Byron delivered his maiden speech in the House of Lords. Instead of a traditional non-controversial speech, he gave a fiery one denouncing the evils of capitalism and defending the working class, astounding the assembled aristocrats into silence.' Byron’s innate rebelliousness and love for liberty and glory also led to his involvement in the Greek war of independence against the Turks. We can conclude that Byron's interest in Greece stems from his attitude utowards revolutionary idealism. Byron was drawn to noble and idealistic causes such as fighting against oppression and injustice and his heart went out to the Greeks suffering in their own homeland. Although Byron mainly championed the cause of the lower classes, his heroes also appealed to the middle class or bourgeoisie who possessed economic power as 4 result of the Industrial Revolution. Byron’s poetry allowed them an escape from the crude reality of the market economy. By immersing themselves in the adventures of Manfred, roaming solitary like Childe Harold in the Alps, or dashing from one adventure to another in the high seas as the heroes in the Turkish Tales, they could escape into a fantasy world and forget temporarily the serious business of money and trade.” One of Byron’s chief defenders in the late nineteenth century was Paul Elmer More, an eminent scholar and a founder of the schoo! of literary criticism known as New Humanism. More had viewed Byron’s genius as an extraordinary mixture of revolutionary spirit and classical art. By “classical” he meant a certain predominance of intellect over emotiveness. As More explains, Byron was an intellectual, not in the manner of a philosopher, but in the impulsive way of a child. It is this approach that gave Byron's poetry the simplicity and tangibility that made it timeless.”! As argued earlier, the Byronic hero does not possess “heroic virtue” in the usual sense but instead has to deal with many inner conflicts or “dark qualities” in him. That is to say, the hero portrayed in all the poems was not perfect: he had flaws and he frequently lost control of his emotions and often acted impulsively and irrationally for the sake of love and honour. This is where his appeal is enhanced. Byron was not afraid to expose his shortcomings through his heroes — his feelings of unrequited love, rejection, the 12theme of incest and homosexuality and the agony of guilt and remorse, as well as his rebellious nature are some of these “dark qualities” portrayed in the heroes. These traits made them as human as everyone else and enabled readers to empathize and identify themselves with the sadness and melancholy in their own lives. The description of the gothic hero’s mysterious past, his guilt and secret sins heightened the mysterious aura surrounding him. Readers were drawn to this brooding, moody and remorseful hero. Often, the Byronic hero is moody by nature or passionate about a particular issue. He also has deep emotional and intellectual capacities. ‘These heightened abilities force the Byronic hero to be arrogant, confident, abnormally sensitive, and extremely conscious of himself. Sometimes, this is to the point of nihilism resulting in his rebellion against life itself (Thorslev 197). In one form or another, he rejects the values and moral codes of society and because of this he is often unrepentant by society’s standards. Often the Byronic hero is characterized by a guilty memory of some unnamed sexual crime. Due to these characteristics, the Byronic hero is often a figure of repulsion, as well as fascination. In Thorslev’s words, “the Byronic Hero was the most popular phenomenon of the English Romantic Movement and the figure with the most far- reaching consequences for nineteenth-century Western Literature.” He was indifferent to moral laws and had a mysterious past which inspired him with deep melancholy, great personal beauty, strength and bravery. ‘The important influence of the Byronic Hero in nineteenth-century literature is also echoed by Herbert Read who states that the Byronic Hero is the “super-realist personality” who, by the absolute courage of his defiance of moral and social taboos, becomes “the unconfessed hero of humanity.” According to Read, he exists in one form 13or another in our dreams, whether we like it or not, and as the embodiment of those impulses cramped or inhibited by society. “He is the expression of the social insecurity of mankind, their distrust of one another, their dissatisfaction with authority, and disillusionment with social achievement” (128). Despite Byron’s refusal to be identified with the heroes in his poems, the Byronie Hero epitomizes the spirit, courage, integrity and principles of Lord Byron, In short, the Byronic Hero represented the very essence of everything Lord Byron stood and fought for. Edward Bostetter sums up the powerful impact of the Byronic Hero by declaring that Byron “made the Byronic Hero not only the symbol of a lost generation but also the prophetic voice of a revolutionary future; and above all, he made him the expression of the eternally defiant mind of man, unconquerable in its will to freedom”(13). The conception of the Byronic Hero is indeed Byron’s greatest achievement as a poet. Although Byron’s genius has been acknowledged by a number of scholars, it cannot be denied that his own notoriety as well as the works of other Romantic poets of the nineteenth century have largely overshadowed his works. However, the popularity of the Byronic hero continues to inspire generations of writers and even many composers throughout the world, This study hopes that through the examination of Byron’s poems, journals, and letters, readers would gain a better understanding of the significance of the Byronic Hero and the reasons for its popularity as a cultural icon in the Romantic period. 14Notes ‘Micheal D. Harkavy, ed., The New Webster's International Encyclopedia (Naples: Trident Press International, 1996) 932. * Elizabeth Wasserman, “The Byron Complex,” Atlantic Unbound. 12 Sep. 2002. 22 Feb. 2003 . > Ronald Carter & John Mc Rae, The History of Literature in English, Britain and Ireland (London: TJ International Ltd. Padstow, Cornwall, 1997) 216. “ Peter L. Thorslev, The Byronic Hero: Types & Prototypes (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962) 186. SPhilip W. Martin, Byron — A Poet Before his Public (London: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 33. ‘Alan Woods, British Poets and the French Revolution (Part One: England and France at the close of the 18" century). TCarter & Mc Rae, 217. ‘Chris Jenks, Culture (London: Clays Ltd., 1993) 16. Rene Wellek, A History of Modern Criticism 1750 ~ 1950 - The Late Nineteenth Century (London: Macmillan Press, 1955) 53. "Marilyn Butler, Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries (London: Oxford University Press, 198) 3. "Anthony Burgess, English Literature: A Survey for Students (Essex: Longman Group Ltd., 1958) 166. ” Burgess, 166, 15"Cultural Icon.” The Oxford English Dictionary 2" ed. CD - Rom. Oxford: University Press, 1992. "Stephanie Massick, “Defining a Hero is difficult to do,” Quest August 2002. April 2003. . 'SJerome McGann, ed., The Complete Poetical Works vol. 2 (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1980) 300. © James Lynn Ruff, Shelley's The Revolt of Islam — Salzburg Studies in Romantic Reassessment (Salzburg: University of Salzburg, 1972) 33-34 "Carter & Mc Rae, 218. '$Christopher Hitchens, “ The Misfortune of Poetry,” The Atlantic Monthly October 2002: 149 — 56. "Lord Blake, “The politics of Byron’s time,” Byron Journal 17 (1989): 40. * Kelvin Everest, English Romantic Poetry (London: Open University Press, 1990) 10. 2! Paul Elmer More, “The Wholesome Revival of Byron,” The Atlantic Monthly Dec. 1998: 301-03. » Thorslev, 186. ? Herbert Read, The True Voice of Feeling - Studies in English Romantic Poetry (London: Faber and Faber, 1953) 128. 16CHAPTER TWO Byron's Biographical Baceground and i Fnflaenee onthe Conception ofthe Byronie lero ‘Thomas Macaulay in his review of Thomas Moore's Life of Byron describes the Byronic Hero as “a man proud, moody, cynical with defiance on his brow, and misery in his heart, a scorer of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection.”' This description also befits Byron himself who can be described as moody and temperamental and prone to melancholy, yet possesses an affectionate, charming, disarming frankness, a sense of humour and high-spirited nature as among his more attractive features. This chapter will examine the influence of events in Byron’s own life ‘on the conception of the Byronic Hero as seen in his two major poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Canto 1 ~ 4), his drama Manfred as well as his letters and journals. It will also look at how the various elements of the eighteenth-century romantic hero have contributed to the conception of the Byronic Hero in his poems. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage According to Peter Thorslev in The Byronic Hero: Types and Prototypes, “Childe Harold is the first important Byronic Hero, and the prototype of all the rest.”* Childe Harold introduced the concept of the Byronic Hero. Indeed Childe Harold's Pilgrimage was an immediate success in England and sealed Byron's popularity. It was not only popular because it is a picturesque travelogue but also due to the biographical nature of the poem itself. In many essays and criticisms written on Byron, critics commonly 7assume that the character of Childe Harold is in reality none other than Lord Byron himself, in spite of Byron’s repeated denial and protestations to the contrary. In his letter to RCC. Dallas dated 31 October 1811, he says: “I by no means intend to identify myself with Harold, but to deny any connection with him...I would not be such a fellow as I have made my hero for all the world.” However, as Thorslev points out, Byron himself was largely responsible for this misconception. Cantos 1 and 2 were written in 1809 — 1810, which was a rather difficult or unsettling period in Byron's life. The first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage were completed at twenty-two when Byron was still young and restless. Byron's strained relationship with his mother and the financial problems he was facing at the time, not to mention the scandals surrounding his personal life, were affecting him emotionally. In addition, Byron had to endure the death of a good friend, Lord Falkland, a naval officer whom he had met in London and formed a close friendship with, Lord Falkland’s death affected Byron deeply as he was killed in a duel. An example of Byron’s sympathetic and benevolent nature is evident in his handling of this tragedy. Byron, notwithstanding his own difficulties at the time, sought to assist Lord Falkland’s widow and children financially. This gesture was mentioned by Byron himself in a letter to his mother dated March 6, 1809: Dear Mother- My last letter was written under great depression of spirits from poor Falkland’s death, who has left without a shilling for children and his wife. I have been endeavouring to assist them...* Byron's restlessness as well as his feelings of insecurity in England prompted him to set off on a grand tour with his friend John Cam Hobhouse and his 18servant Fletcher. It was also the tradition among well educated young gentlemen to go travelling abroad as part of their education so this was not an uncommon thing to do. Byron, however, had other reasons to go abroad as he wanted to forget his problems and escape the pressures at home to soothe his troubled mind and heart. ‘The implications of the idea of pilgrimage, says Emest Lovell, nay well be that Byron even as early as 1809 was actually going in search of some kind of spiritual cure — a cure for his ennui, discontent, restlessness, and feelings of guilt, whatever their causes may have been or however imperfectly he may have realized the fact at the time. Byron's melancholy, as with almost all nineteenth-century melancholy, had its roots in energy repressed. Ennui, as bored and languid youth itself discovered, is the product of enforced inaction or curbed desire (Barzun, 24). Byron was indeed no stranger to ennui as suggested by the first collection of poems issued to the public, Hours of Idleness. Byron as well as other young aristocrats who were mostly Whigs suffered ennui or feelings of boredom as a result of idleness. Ennui functioned as an index of conspicuous leisure ot a histrionic representation of social eminence.* In the early cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Byron expresses a concer with idleness as he tries to explain it, It is clear that Byron's youthful idleness betrays underlying feelings of worthlessness at not having an active role.in society yet as well as a lack of an inspiring role for him to fill. It is a kind of premonition of Byron’s future destiny of undertaking an important role in society to be a symbol of revolutionary spirit. Childe Harold’s sense of melancholy and ennui led him to indulge in a life of sinful pleasure filled with partying, drinking and sexual liaisons. Harold’s wild and ‘womanising ways clearly resemble Byron's own promiscuous lifestyle in London. 19Whilome in Albion’s isle there dwelt a youth, Who ne in virtue’s ways did take delight; But spent his days in riot most uncouth, ‘And vex’d with mirth the drowsy ear of Night. Ah, me! In sooth he was @ shameless wight, Sore given to revel and ungodly glee; Few earthly things found favour in his sight Save concubines and carnal companie, And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree. (1.2.10-18) In the above stanza, the portrait of Childe Harold seems to be exaggerated with the description of Harold’s passionate desire for the company of women which is not unlike Byron's own addiction towards the fairer sex. However, readers can sense an underlying mood of sadness and melancholy amidst Harold’s gaiety. This mixture of moods was of course characteristic of Byron’s own unpredictable temperament. Thorslev distinguishes the Byronic heroes’ characteristics “by his capacities for feeling, mostly for the tender emotions — gentle and tearful love, nostalgia and a pervasive melancholy.” He is also described as something of a solitary and often goes in quest of melancholy adventures. Frequently, this sense of melancholy is brought about by failed romance or broken love affairs. As Edward Bostetter explains: “the loss of passion leaves behind a residue of melancholy and remorse and intensifies the sense of loneliness but, on the other hand, brings a sense of relief. The hero has been set free to seek other pleasures” (165). In other words, it provides Byron with the perfect excuse to indulge in his womanising and drinking habits. Byron himself later linked the mood of melancholy and ennui, which was especially strong during the months before he left England, in the summer of 1809, with the premature indulgence of his passions: My passions were developed very early — so early, that few would believe me, if I were to state the period, and the facts which accompanied it. Perhaps this was one of the reasons which caused the anticipated 20melancholy of my thoughts - having anticipated life. My earlier poems are the thoughts of one at least ten years older than the age at which they were written: I don’t mean for their solidity, but their Experience. The first two Cantos of Childe Harold were completed at twenty-two, and they are written as if by a man older than I shall probably ever be.* Byron obviously refers to his sexual passion in this quotation. In his journal entry on November 26, 1813, Byron again mentions his early developed passion with regards to his. first childhood infatuation with Mary Duff. Thave been thinking lately a good deal of Mary Duff. How very odd that I should have been so utterly, devotedly fond of that girl, at an age when I could neither feel passion, nor know the meaning of the word. ° Harold’s sense of melancholy in the first two cantos can be attributed to Byron’s own sense of sadness as a result of unrequited love. His next doomed affair was with Mary Charworth, daughter of an heiress, whom he had been infatuated with since he was a boy, and which was something from which he never fully recovered as seen in this stanza: For he through Sin’s long labyrinth had run, ‘Nor made atonement when he did amiss, Had sigh’d to many though he lov'd but one, And that lov’d one, alas! Could ne’er be his. Ah, happy she! to” scape from him whose kiss Had been polluted unto aught so chaste; ‘Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss, And spoil’d her goodly lands to gild his waste, ‘Nor calm domestic peace had ever deign’d to taste. (1.5.37-45) He refers to her again when he says: “I loved her from my boyhood; she to me/ Was a fairy city of the heart” (4. 18. 154 — 155). The fact that Mary Chaworth only regarded him as a mere schoolboy only intensified Byron’s suffering. Later, these feelings of unrequited love 2will again be felt by Byron as he struggles to overcome the strong feelings he has developed for his half-sister Augusta of whom he is rumoured to have had an incestuous relationship. Byron's passionate nature not only refers to his womanising habits but also alludes to his homosexual tendencies which may have been the cause of his psychologically affected behaviour including his sense of loneliness, guilt, remorse, his alienation from, hatred of and rebellion against conventional society. Byron had passionate romantic friendships with other boys at school at Harrow. He also fell in love with John Edelston, a boy chorister in the church at Cambridge. When in Greece, he wrote letters of his sexual conquests to friends in England and his last, unrequited passion was for a Greek boy aged fifteen (Moore, 324). Homosexuality was severely persecuted during the Romantic period." In fact, the romantic ideal was generally a protest of lonely, unrealised desire against the increasing cultural restrictiveness during that period. It was a time when the newly dominant, puritanical middle-class had asserted its power in England and there ‘was a publicly sanctioned aversion to sexual transgressiveness of such extremity. It was ironic then that the Romantic period was in reality a contrast to the Romantic ideal which upheld individualism and unrestrained lyrical expression usually centred in love as an ultimate human value." The first two cantos of Child Harold's Pilgrimage convey Byron's underlying melancholy, reflecting his sense of pessimism and fatalism over his own sexual weaknesses and promiscuity. In the lines ‘felt the fullness of Satiety’ and ‘through Sin’s long labyrinth had run,’ he faced the reality of the imperfection of human nature (Moore, 400). Byron’s dejection and disillusionment can be sensed in the following stanza:Yet oft-times in his maddest mirthful mood Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold’s brow, Asif the memory of some deadly feud Or disappointed passion lurk’d below: But his was not that open, artless soul That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow, Nor sought he friend to counsel or condole, Whate’er his grief mote be, which he could not control. (1.8.64-72) In this stanza, there is a sense of fatalism of one who fears that through sexual excess he has destroyed his ability and right to enjoy anything else. However, Byron’s paradoxical nature surfaces once again as. seen in one of his statements to his wife, Anabella, to whom he wrote: The great object of life is sensation — to feel that we exist, even though in pain. It is this “craving void" which drives us to gaming - to battle- to travel, to intemperate, but keenly felt pursuits of every description, whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment. '? Bostetter stresses that “although Byron hated and feared his sexual passions, he cultivated them.” By indulging in his sexual cravings, Byron felt he was truly living and not merely existing, and his tendency to explore and experience different kinds of sexual experience intensified this feeling in him. The fact that some of his sexual trysts were with prominent and wealthy married women notably Lady Caroline Lamb and Lady Oxford made it all the more fascinating for Byron as these exploits were both scandalous and forbidden, Byron’s feelings of loneliness have been commented upon by Thomas Moore in his writings. Moore mentions among other things, Byron’s lonely aristocratic position in the world when they first met. He attributes Byron’s subsequent disdain for mankind to his loneliness: 23Mr.Dallas and his solicitor seemed to be the only persons whom even in their very questionable degree, he could boast of as friends. Though too proud to complain of this loneliness, it was evident that he felt it; and that the state of cheerless isolation, “unguided and unftiended,” to which, on entering manhood, he had found himself abandoned, was one of the chief sources of that resentful disdain of mankind, which even their subsequent worship of him came too late to remove.'* Byron’s feelings of loneliness, rejection and self-pity is evident in the following stanza from Canto | in which Harold contemplates on his fate: And now I’m in the world alone, Upon the wide, wide sea: But why should | for others groan, When none will sigh for me? Perchance my dog will whine in vain, Till fed by stranger hands; But long ere I come back again, He'd tear me where he stands. (1.9.182-189) This theme of rejection and loneliness is repeated again in Canto 3: Ihave not loved the world, nor the world me:- But let us part fair foes; I do believe, Though I have found them not, that there may be Words which are things,- Hopes which will not deceive, ‘And virtues which are merciful, nor weave Snares for the failing; I would also deem O’er others’ griefs that some sincerely grieve; ‘That two, or one, are almost what they seem, ‘That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream. (3.114.1058-1066) Like most Romantic poetic personalities, Byron has been “fated” to be set apart from other men, alienated from the social world of which he would otherwise gladly have been a part of Still, he beheld, nor mingled with the throng; But viewed them not with misanthropic hate; Fain would he now have joined the dance, the song; But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate? —(1.84,828-831) 24Byron felt alienated from his native land, and regarded himself as an outcast ~ which he was, His revolutionary politics and unconventional behaviour led him to be described as “Mad, bad and dangerous to know.”"* It is not surprising that Byron felt ashamed to be English and abandoned the country as soon as he could. In a typical Romantic gesture, he sought refuge in the most lonely and inaccessible places in the Alps. Solitude indeed featured strongly in Byron's life. While he detested his isolation and feelings of Joneliness, at most times, Byron valued his solitude as it gave him the chance to reflect and dwell upon his life. Byron’s love of solitude was developed very early in his life. As a schoolboy in Harrow, Byron would sit in the churchyard while other children played. This tendeney for solitude was carried on during his foreign travel as Byron preferred his own company than the society of his fellow travellers. Moore commented that Byron’s instinct towards a life of solitude and independence are in fact the true elements of his strength, Byron worked his contemplative mind in his lone wanderings in Greece where he had sufficient leisure and seclusion to look within himself and catch the first “glimpses of his glorious mind” (Moore, 221). In his journal entry dated November 27, 1813 Byron writes: "To withdraw myself from myself (oh that cursed selfishness!) has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.”"® He attempted to lose himself in the world of nature around him, As he states in Canto 3, stanza 72 in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, “I live not in myself, but I become / Portion of that around me; and to me / High mountains are a feeling.” In the next stanza, Harold flies to solitude among the mountains, where he 25sometimes looks on his surroundings simply as a refuge from the crowd and the turmoil of life: Is it not better, then, to be alone, And love Earth only for its earthly sake? By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone, Or the pure bosom of its nursing Lake, Which feeds it as a mother who doth make A fair but forward infant her own care, Kissing its cries away as these awake;- Is it not better thus our lives to wear, Than join the crushing crowd, doomed to inflict or bear? _(3.71.671-679) In spite of this poetic credo, however, Byron wrote in his journal of the tour which inspired the third canto that none of the sublime effects of the Alpine scenery “enabled [him] to lose [his] own wretched identity in the majesty and the power, and the Glory — around — above - & beneath me.” Cantos 3 and 4 which were written about four years later around 1814 - 1817 shows an important transition whereby the hero becomes more assimilated to Byron’s own persona. A lot of events had happened since Byron composed the first two cantos. A major incident was the death of his mother in 1811. The subsequent deaths of a number of his friends and relatives about two or three months after that further traumatised him. As Moore pointed out, “Besides the loss of his mother, he had to mourn over, in quick succession, the untimely fatalities that carried off, within a few weeks of each other, two or three of his most loved and valued friends"(132). The impact of these deaths is expressed by Byron himself in a note on Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto 2, “In the space of one month, I have lost her who gave me being, and most of those that made that being tolerable.” That Byron was deeply affected by her death was also evident in his letter to John Pigot dated August 2, 1811. 26My dear doctor ~ My poor mother died yesterday! and I am on my way from town to attend her to the family vault. I heard one day of her illness, the next of her death. Thank God her last moments were most tranquil. I am told she was in little pain, and not aware of her situation. I now feel the truth of Mr. Gray’s observation,’that we can only have one mother.’ Peace be with her. (Moore, 127) It was Byron's misfortune to be well-born but ill-bred. Detached from his mother ever since childhood due her violent and temperamental nature, Byron was also disgusted with her vulgar behaviour and kept his distance from her throughout his life. However, upon learning of her death, Byron felt a certain sadness and pined for a mother for whom he never really understood and desperately craved love from. Byron's volatile relationship with his mother clearly affected him deeply for he could not help loving and hating her and resented the ambiguity of his feelings. He tried to conquer his affection and fell into gloom, despair, and savagery at the inevitable promptings of guilt, The loss of his mother followed by the subsequent death of two very close friends was devastating for Byron as revealed in his letter to Francis Hodgson dated August 22, 1811: You may have heard of the sudden death of my mother, and poor Matthews, which, with that of Wingfield had made a sad chasm in my connections. Indeed, the blows followed each other so rapidly that I am yet stupid from the shock, and though I do not eat, and drink ,and talk, and even laugh, at times, yet I can hardly persuade myself that I am awake, did not every moming convince me mournfully to the contrary. (Moore, 132) The friends he had lost were young John Wingfield a childhood friend at Harrow who died of a fever and Charles Skinner Matthews, his idol in Cambridge who drowned while bathing in the sea. That Byron was emotionally disturbed while writing Canto 3 is revealed in his letter to Moore dated 28 January, 1817: 27Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, IIT is a fine indistinct piece of poetical desolation, and my favourite. 1 was half mad during the time of its composition, between metaphysics, mountains, lakes, love unextinguishable, thoughts unutterable, and the nightmare of my own delinquencies. I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law.'* Byron's fusion with the hero-type he had created is the central feature of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto 3. As Sit Walter Scott wrote in May 1816, “Lord Byron has Childe Harolded himself and Outlawed himself into too great a resemblance with the pictures of his imagination."'° In the following cantos, Childe Harold reveals a more passive, philosophical and reflective nature. An important example of his philosophical selfis found in Canto 3 in which the hero reflects on his purpose in life. I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture: I can see ‘Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be A link reluctant in a fleshy chain, Class’d among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. (3.72.680-688) This gloomy and melancholic mood continues in the next stanza: ‘And thus I am absorb’d, and this is life: look upon the peopled desert past, Asona place of agony and strive, Where, for some sin, to sorrow I was cast, To act and suffer, but remount at last (3.73.689-693) In stanza 75, Harold’s tone of spiritual dejection is sensed as he contemplates in the lines “Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part/ Of me and of my soul, as I of them?” (3.75.707-708) In these stanzas, Byron is more concerned with his 28personal salvation as he feels remorseful for his sins but his Calvinistic sense of fatality causes him to believe that he is doomed to suffer etemal damnation, Byron’s bitter experience with the Calvinist teachings during his childhood have been acknowledged by many critics as a responsible factor for Byron’s sense of sin and fatality, as well as his gloom and defiance. This is due to the fact that Byron himself had written many letters on the subject of religion. In a revealing letter to William Gifford written on June 18, 1813, commenting on the ‘immortality” stanzas in Canto 2, Byron associates his scientific as well as Calvinist views. Tam no Bigot to Infidelity, and did not expect that, because I doubted the immortality of Man, I should be charged with denying the existence of a God. It was the comparative insignificance of ourselves and our world, when placed in competition with the mighty whole, of which it is an atom, that first led me to imagine that our pretensions to eternity might be over-rated. This, and being early disgusted with a Calvinistic Scotch school, when I was cudgelled to Church for the first ten years of my life, afflicted me with this malady; for, after all, it is, I believe, a disease of the mind as much as other kinds of hypochondria. (Moore, 147) In one of his letters to Hodgson, Byton’s attack on Christianity is full of anger and hatred as he presents God as a tyrant who demanded vengeance and sacrifice. He accuses Christianity as being a religion founded on “injustice.” This accusation of Byron further reflects the extent of his bitter reaction to Calvinism. «the basis of your religion is injustice; the Son of God, the pure, the immaculate, the innocent, is sacrificed for the Guilty. This proves His heroism;...As to your immortality, if people are to live, why die? And our carcasses which are to rise again, are they worth raising? (Moore, 35-36) Byron’s accusations of an unjust and unforgiving God is evident in his despondency and frustration in the following stanza: That curse shall be Forgiveness-Have I not- Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!- 29Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? Have I suffered things to be forgiven? Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven, Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life’s life lied away? ‘And only not to desperation driven, Because not altogether of such clay As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. (4.135.1207-1215) Byron’s wife, Anabella whom he had married in 1814 had tried remorselessly to get Byron interested in the subject of religion but failed. In a letter to Anabella dated March 3, 1814 Byron gives her an honest answer to one of her queries when he says that religion is a source from which “I never did, and I believe never can, derive comfort” (Moore, 262). ‘The dilemma that the hero of sensibility faces is his inability to commit himself to a religious belief as depicted in Canto 3, stanza 90: ‘Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are Jeast alone; A truth, which through our being then doth melt, And purifies from self: it is a tone, (3.90.840-843) The phrase “purifies from self” indicates that the hero needs to renounce his personal identity in order to commit himself to a religious “truth.” This failure causes the Byronic hero to feel at times frustrated and disappointed, thus contributing to his melancholic and remorseful mood. Leslie Marchand argues that the significance of the whole of the Byronic melancholy can be traced in Childe Harold. He points out that “the multiple and changing moods all center on the inexorable dilemma of the romantic ego: the compulsive search for an ideal and a perfection that do not exist in the world of reality.”! Thorslev, too, echoes the great importance of Byron’s agonized sensitive hero by stating that it is this hero and 30not his satire that was Byron’s legacy to the literature of the age which succeeded him (186). In appearance, Byron’s heroes contain characteristics of the Gothic Villain who is often portrayed as striking and handsome, He is described as “of about middle age or somewhat younger, has a tall, manly, stalwart physique, with dark hair and brows frequently set off by a pale and ascetic complexion” (Thorslev,142). Aside from this, the most noticeable of his physical characteristics are his eyes which are usually piercing. By birth the Gothic Villain was always of the aristocracy, partly for the sense of power which his nobility confers, and partly for the air of the fallen angel, the air of Satanic greatness perverted. Frequently, there is some mystery connected with his birth or his upbringing. The sense of mystery which is his dominant trait is apparent not only in the origins and in the general appearance of the Gothic Villain, but in his entire personality. This air of mystery is increased by the hint of some past family or personal secret sins of the hero.”? Although not as dominant as the Hero of Sensibility, some characteristics of the Gothic Villain can be found in Harold in the poem. Stanza 3 of Canto 1 describes Harold’s aristocratic background: Childe Harold was he hight: - but whence his name And lineage long, it suits me not to say; Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame, And had been glorious in another day: (1.3.19 - 22) Harold also possesses the major characteristics of the Gothic Villain including characteristics of pride, remorse and passion as found in Cantos 1 and 2. Harold’s secret and sinful past which was one of the main attractions of the Gothic Villain is evident in Canto 1. 31 (Asneae343Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold’s brow, As if the Memory of some deadly feud Or disappointed passion lurked below: But this none knew, nor haply cared to know; For his was not that open, artless soul That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow, ‘Nor sought he friend to counsel or condole, Whate’er this grief more be .. (1.8.65-72) This “sinful past” of course has reference to Byron’s own well known sexual exploits including the rumours of his affair with his half-sister Augusta, his homosexual tendencies as well as his numerous affairs with beautiful aristocratic as well as ordinary women, Byron's grief was also further aggravated by his marital problems with Anabella Milbanke which subsequently led to their separation in 1816. The backdrop of monuments, battles and scenery in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage are interwoven with Harold’s personal preoccupations, namely his melancholy and grief, his championing of liberty and freedom and the significance of solitude and nature so that they become infused into the hero’s psyche and character. ‘The appeal of Childe Harold transcended all classes of society. He provided fashionable entertainment for the leisurely aristocrats, a sense of hope for the disillusioned, oppressed post-war middle class as well as an exciting form of escapism for the poverty- stricken, lowly existence of the working class. The poem also provided exciting reading material for the new breed of cultured, reading public of the period. As Bostetter puts it, “Byron became overnight the expression of the English libido, so long repressed by religion, government, and war” (273). Every reader immediately identified the hero with the author and directly or indirectly with himself. In Childe Harold, Byron created the “instrument of his fate because in it he created a hero whose excesses against the conventional mores, whose marble heart, ennui, and melancholy were just enough to 32attract rather than repel.’ It is evident then that Byron’s portrayal of Childe Harold, with his combination of sensitivity, passion, melancholy and remorse, not to mention his desirable appearance, succeeded in creating a highly popular hero as well as a cultural icon. Manfred Byron’s greatest dramatic poem, Manfred, serves as an important transitional milestone in his career as a writer and thinker. In the composition of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Canto 3, Byron described himself as being “half mad between metaphysics, mountains, lakes, love unextinguishable, thoughts unutterable, and the nightmare of my own delinquencies.”** ‘The story of Manfred portrays that same suffering and mental anguish. Edward Bostetter has described Manfred as the drama in which “Byron symbolically works his way through to mental sanity, to the psychological perspective that made Don Juan possible” (54 — 55). Byron uses his “satanic” hero to romanticize pain, suffering, as well as to create empathy towards characters with accursed souls, John Addington Symonds points out that “Manfred is the incamation of a defiant, guilty, self-reliant personality, preserved from despair by its disdainful pride, linked to the common joys and sorrows of humanity by the slender but still vital thread of a passion which is also an unforgotten and unforgivable crime”(410-420). Though Manfred is not meant to be seen as a vampire, in the literal sense, Byron nevertheless incorporates vampiric images into his dramatic poem. Like earlier versions of vampires or in Gothic novels, Manfred is not fully human, has an ambiguous past, and is tortured by an eternal pain that implies a form of 33immortality.”* He feels that his suffering places him above the realm of mortals in terms of feeling and power. Manfred believes that this burden is too much to bear, “Yet, I live, and bear / The aspect and the form of breathing men” (1.i. 7 ~ 8) for he is condemned to a life of suffering instead of a merciful death. Manfred represents the typical persona of the Byronic hero. He is the dark, handsome man with an ambiguous past that attracts the reader and immediately affirms his place as the hero of the story before anything is known about him, In fact, critics have mostly discussed Manfred in terms of its autobiographical content rather than its literary merit. The theme of incest and the agony of remorse are frequently connected to Byron's ‘own scandalous personal life. The theme of incest was common in Gothic novels and drama and in Romantic literature in general. Bertrand Evans concedes that in order to deepen the mystery, heighten the suspense, as well as retain as much sympathy as possible for the hero, it is necessary for the villain hero not to reveal the reasons for his remorse until the very last act.2” However, Manfred is not merely a remorseful Gothic Villain. What sets Manfred apart is that he is depicted as more mature, philosophical, and psychologically aware of his inner self compared to the passionate and rebellious Childe Harold, as well as the fearless heroes of The Turkish Tales who, driven by anger and revenge, frequently reacted in a rather mindless, impulsive, and sometimes dangerous manner (Thorslev, 168). Manfred is, on the one hand, a “Gothic Villain,” and an idealized “hero” on the other. He is a “villain” because he is like a fallen, aristocratic angel who is haunted by a mystery and has ventured into the realm of the forbidden. But he is also a “hero” since he is portrayed as a sort of titan-like figure who is isolated from the rest of humanity, and shows immense 34spiritual fortitude. M. Byron Raizis believes that the character of Manfred is the author's supreme representation of the Byronic hero. The qualities that mark this type of hero represent the antithesis of traditional heroism. This hero is not the leader of his people or a representative of his country. He is instead the “archrebel” and it is this rebellious energy and moody self-isolation that is the source of his attraction (50). By 1816, Byron left England forever, his reputation ruined by the collapse of his marriage and the rumours of his affair with his half-sister, Augusta. He went to Switzerland where he met the Shelleys and they proceded to pass their time writing ghost stories. In writing Manfred, Byron drew his inspiration from the heroic archetype figures of Goethe's Faust as well as Milton’s Satan and the hero Prometheus. Byron derived much of his inspiration for Manfred from Matthew “Monk” Lewis, who arrived in Switzerland to join Byron’s party on Lake Geneva in August, 1816, and who introduced the poet to Goethe’s Faust by translating sections of it for him2* Goethe’s poem immediately captured Byron’s imagination, Byron was the only poet of the English Romantic Movement who was deeply influenced by Goethe’s drama. Goethe’s review provides an important analysis of Byron’s drama as his own: “This singular intellectual poet has taken my Faustus to himself, and extracted from it the strangest nourishment for his hypochondriac humour. He has made use of the impelling. principles in his own way, for his own purposes, so that not one of them remains the same”(Mac Donald, 26). In other words, Manfred as Byron insisted, is not simply taken from Faust. It is a powerful and thorough revision of Goethe’s work and of the tradition behind it. 35‘The Faustian influence is evident in the diabolic theme in Manfred. As a play dealing with the supernatural, elements of the Satanic pact with the devil is dealt with in the stanzas in which Manfred (who has already refused the Chamois Hunter’s offer to pray for him) now refuses the Abbot's offer for a reconciliation with heaven: Old man! There is no power in holy men, Nor charm in prayer - nor purifying form Of penitence-nor outward look-nor fast- ‘Nor agony-nor, greater than all these, ‘The innate tortures of that deep despair, Which is remorse without the fear of hell, But all in all sufficient to itself Would make a hell of heaven —can exorcise From out the unbounded spirit, the quick sense Of its own sins... 3.1.66 75) His denial of a pact with the devil reflects his refusal to interact with anyone, including the Chamois Hunter, who does not expect obedience or anything else.”” Manfred is the supreme example of the Byronic hero, proud and independent, living as a perpetual exile, unable to conform to society and considering himself different from other men, living by his own values. However, unlike Faust, Byron’s Manfied rejects the offer of a pact with the devil. He does this not because he chooses heaven instead but because he is totally autonomous. The Byronic hero can do without God and the devil.” The play stems ftom Byron’s imagination beginning from the “incantation” or curse that is imposed on Manfred at the end of the first scene, Byron apparently wrote the Incantation before the rest of the play. The hero then goes through a series of trials in which he is tempted at every stage by opportunities to escape or transmute its effects but only in inadequate or demeaning ways. Manfred, as a dramatic creation, obviously draws 36upon a major part of Byron’s character and personal history namely his conflict with his Calvinistic upbringing and his incestuous love for his half-sister, Augusta. In Manfred, the treatment of the hero is different from that in the other poems because Byron moves the story onto a metaphysical and allegorical level, not unlike Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound or the second part of Goethe’s Faust, Jerome McGann concedes that like Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, Manfred exposes and suffers internally as a result of his guilt. The poem is a confession of guilt and an act of atonement but it is an act which carries neither absolution nor reconciliation (18). The tone of melancholy which is reminiscent of the Hero of Sensibility in Canto 1 of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage is evident in the drama’s opening, a Faust-like monologue. Manfred reveals his emotional state of being with a coldness toward good, evil, and life itself: Good, or evil, life, Powers, passions, all I see in other beings, Have been to me as rain unto the sands, Since that all- nameless hour. I have no dread, And feel the curse to have no natural fear, Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes, Or lurking love of something on the earth. (1.1.21 27) However, the mood of melancholy that pervades the drama resounds most clearly in those passages that convey Manfred’s disillusionment with his new power. Manfred is the poet-magician, who by his science has gained a measure of control over the spirits of the elements he summons before him at the outset of the play: But grief should be the instructor of the wise; Sorrow is Knowledge: they who know the most, Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. (1.1.9 - 12) 37‘The hero is representative of human wisdom, which, having explored all earthly things, finds in them no solid joy or lasting treasure. Byron repeats this idea that knowledge does not bring happiness in the second canto when he says: ‘And they have only taught him what we know- That knowledge is not happiness, and science But an exchange of ignorance for that Which is another kind of ignorance. (2.4.60 - 63) Manfred is a sage whose wisdom has given him direct contact with supernatural beings. He is also another typically Byronic hero, haunted by remorse for some dark crime, namely incest, alienated from human society, a rebel against the established order of things. According to Stuart M. Sperry, “Manfred is the imprisoned or self-imprisoned Prometheus, the prey of his own reflections.”*! The figure of Prometheus became symbolic throughout the Romantic Movement of man in his fight for liberty against oppression in all its forms. Byron was an admirer of Prometheus, and he had much ofthe Promethean spirit and transferred it to many of his characters such as Manfred. Prometheus as hero and saviour of men owes his character almost entirely to Aeschylus in Prometheus Bound. In Aeschylus he becomes completely transformed into a titanic hero and a saviour of man, and it is in this form that he has captured the minds of poets including Byron. Like the Titan, he is uncompromising in his romantic longing for a perfection which he did not find in life while at the same time rationally resigns himself to his fate acknowledging the powerlessness of human limitations, while maintaining his defiance of the gods. Manfred’s reply to the spirits is Byron's own: The Mind, the Spirit, the Promethean spark, ‘The Lightning of my being, is as bright, Pervading, and far darting as your own, And shall not yield to yours, though cooped in clay! (1.1.154-157) 38In the letter Byron sent to John Murray about Manfred dated October 1817, he readily acknowledged the Aeschylean influence on his drama. Of the Prometheus of Aeschylus I was passionately fond as a boy (it was one of the Greek plays we read thrice a year at Harrow)... The Prometheus, if not exactly in my plan, has always been so much in my head, that I can easily conceive its influence over all or any thing that I have written.” ‘The significance of Prometheus was also emphasized recently by Martyn Corbett, who stated: “The figure of Prometheus has been the presiding genius of the Swiss summer of 1816.™° Prometheus was the very type of the Romantic rebel who had an independent streak. For both Shelley and Byron, Satan and Prometheus had come to stand for the ultimate in rebellion: a rebellion which asserted the independence of the individual and his values not only in the face of society, but even in the face of God. We can conclude then that Prometheus, influenced Byron's conception of the hero in Manfred (Thorslev, 168). Critics have consistently seen Manfred as both a hero and an autobiographical projection of the poet. Throughout the play, we encounter Manfred overcoming a series of temptations. He rejects allegiance to any of the deities, whether they be pantheistic, Manichean, or Christian.”* In all this, Manfred bears some similarity to Byron himself who rejected all religious teaching as a retaliation against his strict Calvinist upbringing. In addition, his destructive and apparently incestuous love for the beautiful Astarte suggests the poet's liason with Augusta Leigh. Manfred’s infatuation with Astarte is contained in the following lines which highlight the idea of forbidden love: Manfred. I say ‘tis blood-my blood! the pure warm stream Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours ‘When we were in our youth, and had one heart, And loved each other as we should not love; (2.1.24 -27) 39Byron expresses the intense love between Manfred and Astarte which hints at Byron’s own intense feelings for his half-sister. Manfred... Thou lovedst me Too much, as I loved thee: we were not made To torture thus each other — though it were The deadliest sin to love as we have loved. (2.4.120 - 123) The deep feelings that Byron felt for Augusta are clearly evident in his letters to her. Byron regarded her as his closest confidante and frequently poured out his fiustrations and anger that he felt towards his mother by writing about them to Augusta, such as in a letter dated April 23, 1805 which underscores Byron’s tumultuous relationship with his mother: 1 assure you upon my honour, jesting apart, I have never been so scurrilously and violently abused by any person, as by that woman, whom I think I am to call mother, by that being who gave me birth, to whom I ought to look up with veneration and respect, but whom I am sorry I cannot love or admire. Within one little hour, I have not only heard myself, but have heard my whole family by the father’s side, stigmatised in terms that the blackest malevolence would perhaps shrink from, and that too in words you ‘would be shocked to hear. Such, Augusta, such is my mother, my mother!** Later, when he married Anabella Milbanke, Byron confided to Augusta his unhappiness and his animosity towards his wife. In a letter dated September 17, 1816 Byron expressed regret for having married the wrong woman and professed that he could never love anyone the way he loved her: ‘What a fool I was too marry ~ and you are not very wise ~ we might have lived so single and so happy — as old maids and bachelors, I shall never find anyone like you — nor you (vain as it may scem) like me, We are just formed to pass our lives together, and therefore ~ we ~ at least ~ I~ am by a crowd of circumstances removed from the only being who could ever have loved me of whom I can unmixedly feel attached to.” 40This sentiment is also found in another intimate letter to Augusta dated May 17, 1819 in which one can sense the inner turmoil Byron must have been going through as he pours out his passionate feelings and sense of hopelessness to Augusta: But I have never ceased nor can cease to feel for a moment that perfect and boundless attachment which bound and binds me to you ~ which renders me utterly incapable of real love for any other human being — for what could they be to me after you?... They say absence destroys weak passions — and confirms strong ones ~ Alas! mine for you is the union of all passions and of all affections — Has strengthened itself but will destroy me — Ido not speak of physical destruction — for I have endured and can endure much — but of the annihilation of all thoughts, feelings or hopes ~ which have not more or less reference to you and to our recollections .”” That Augusta also shared deep feelings and affection for Byron is confirmed in Annabella’s revelation of Augusta’s constant wearing of one of “the two gold brooches containing his hair and hers, with three crosses on them,” while the other brooch was worn. by Byron (Marchand, 653). According to Anabella, Augusta later confessed to her that Byron had tried to renew their incestuous relation. Byron's own admission of their affair seems evident according to his wife Anabella who records the conversation Byron had with her in the presence of Augusta. “You know,” he said another night, before both women, “you know that is my child” ~ pointing to Medora (Augusta’s daughter, born April 15, 1814) and going on to calculate the year of her birth, so as to prove she could not possibly be the husband’s child.** Although Byron later refutes this claim by calculating Colonel Leigh’s absence and proving that Medora could not be his child, this observation strongly hints at the possibility that Byron did indeed have sexual relations with his sister. Byron himself hinted to Moore of his liason with Augusta in his letter to Moore dated August 22, 1813: 4«L have said nothing, either, of the brilliant sex; but the fact is, I am at this moment in a far more serious, and entirely new, scrape than any of the last twelve months, - and that is saying a good deal, It is unlucky we can neither live with nor without these women.” In another letter to Moore dated August 28, 1813 Byron again hints at this affair: “Seriously, I would incorporate with any woman of decent demeanour tomorrow — that is, I would a month ago, but at present,***”.° That he told Moore more about this liason is suggested by the asterisks. ‘Manfred’s infatuation with Astarte is, however, more than just a reflection of Byron’s relationship with Augusta. It signifies Byron’s tumultuous relationship with women on the whole. As Sperry puts it, “It is the expression of his disastrous love-life as a whole — the compulsive self-destructiveness that characterized all his affairs and even his marriage." In dealing with Astarte, we are exploring the deeper levels of Byron's psyche. It was, as stated earlier easier for him to reject the various religious creeds or dogma than ignoring the voice of his own conscience especially in dealing with his sexual and emotional transgressions. It is a psychologically acknowledged fact that the most dangerous and inhibiting guilt is that which is self-inflicted. “The gods that are the most inexorable and difficult to exorcise are those we set up within ourselves. Manfred is above all an object lesson in these truths” (Sperry, 197). The consequences of Manfred’s curse resemble closely to Byron’s guilt and symptoms of depression in 1816 as a result of his failed marriage and rumoured affair with Augusta. Manfred’s torment is therefore partly a representation of Byron’s misery during his own journey through the alps.” 42Manfred’s confrontation with the fiend is indeed the climax of the drama, It is really an aspect of Byron’s confrontation with himself. Sperry likens the confrontation with the fiend somewhat like Frankenstein's monster, who tums upon his master (199). Interestingly enough, it was when Byron began Manfred during the summer of 1816 that Mary Shelley discovered her idea for her novel. The menacing figure symbolizes Manfred’s curse or the rationalization that the curse exists in any sense outside of himself. Manfred finally takes onto himself full responsibility for his guilt: Back to thy hell! Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel; Thou never shalt possess me, that I know; ‘What I have done; I bear within A torture which could nothing gain from thine; The mind which is immortal makes itself Requital for its good or evil thoughts- Is its own origin of ill and end- And its own place and time. (3.4.124 ~ 32) Manfred conquers his curse, paradoxically, only by intemalising and accepting it. Manfred’s death is self-tedemptive.** Daniel McVeigh concedes that Manfred’s death “is thus the ultimate Pyrrhic victory, an embracing of his ‘proper Hell’, Whatever his moral status, his courage gives him a heroic stature above that of the characters surrounding him” (610). Manfred, often referred to as the quintessential Byronic hero, is popular with readers for the conventional anti-heroic qualities often found in Byronic heroes. He is a rebel to the very end, a dark and brooding loner who is isolated and set apart from society: ‘In my heart/ There is a vi and these eyes but close/ To look within and yet I live, and bear/ The aspect and the form of breathing men” (1.1.5-8). Manfred is also passionate, intellectual and highly emotional. He shows defiance and pride and rejects the 43values and morality of society. As with all Byronic heroes, he is haunted by a traumatic experience in his past causing him to suffer conflict or inner turmoil, All these characteristics coupled with his brooding good looks appealed to the reading public who ‘were fascinated with this hero who dabbles in the supernatural but is still very human, Manfred’s triumph which is both dramatic and tragic is a reflection of Byron’s own tragic life story. Having to face personal trials and tribulations caused by his personal scandals, Byron nevertheless gained fame and success through his writings.“* More importantly, Manfred signals the end of Byron’s active role in Parliamentary English politics and his subsequent political involvement in Greece. His passion in his role as liberator in Greece’s fight for independence and his subsequent sudden death in the very country that he had grown to love and had dedicated his life to were both dramatic as well as tragic ~ just like Mantred’s.Notes 'T.B Macaulay, ed., Critical & Historical Essays (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1905) 613. Peter L. Thorslev, The Byronic Hero: Types & Prototypes (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962) 128. 3RE Prothero, ed., The Works of Lord Byron: Letters & Journals (London: John Murray, 1973) 66 *Prothero, 77. ‘Emest J. Lovell, Jr. ed., His Very Self and Voice ~ Collected Conversations of Lord Byron (New York : Macmillan Co., 1954) 112. “For conspicuous leisure, see Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (Boston: Dover Publications Inc., 1973). For dandyism see Ellen Moers, The Dandy (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978). 7 Thorslev, 35. “Thomas Moore ed., The Life, Letters & Journals of Lord Byron (London: John Murray, 1860) 86. °* Moore, 262. '® Stuart Curran, “English Literature: Romanticism,”GLBTO Magazine 20 August 2002. May 2003 . ‘Leslie A. Marchand, Byron: A Biography (New York, University of Washington Press, 1957) 219. 2 Moore, 400. "3 Edward Bostetter, The Romantic Ventriloquists (New York: University of ‘ashington Press, 1963) 269. 45‘In a letter to Mr. William Bankes dated March 6, 1807 Byron expresses disdain over his lonely and solitary state; “For my own part, I have suffered severely in the decease of my *two greatest friends, the only beings I ever loved (females excepted); Tam therefore a solitary animal, miserable enough, and so perfectly a citizen of the world that whether I pass my days in Great Britain or kamschatka, is to me a matter of perfect indifference. The two friends here refer to either Lord Falkland or Hon. John Wingfield and Charles Skinner Matthews. BLJ, 42, 'S A phrase coined by Lady Caroline Lamb in her journal on the evening she first saw Byron. Lady Caroline Lamb, wife of William Lamb was a little wild and literally threw herself at Byron. Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb went on to have a passionate love affair that rocked London society. ‘Moore, 132. "Moore, 262. "® Moore, 338. ° Moore, 221. > Moore, 147. Leslie A. Marchand, Byron's Poetry: A Critical Introduction (Boston: Boston Houghton-Mifilin Company, 1965) 38. *Thorslev, 142. andrew Rutherford, Byron: A Critical Study (London: Oliver & Boyd Ltd., 1961) 184, * Bostetter, 273. 25Prothero, 54-55. 26 Philip S. Martin, Byron - A Poet Before his Public (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) 126. 46?” The possible influence of Chateaubriand’s works, especially Rene, on the Byronic Hero has often been debated. The agonized remorse for secret sins and the likely incest theme make it possible that Rene did influence Manfred, although both of these themes were already flourishing in England even before Rene was published in France. See Thorslev, 216 2 Matthew G. Lewis was a good friend of Byron’s who derived his nickname “Monk” Lewis from his violent and sadistic tale The Monk, See D.L. MacDonald, “Incest, Narcissism and Demonality in Byron’s Manfred,” Mosaic 25.2 (1992) : 26. There is a similarity here to Milton’s Satan who believes that the mind can make a heaven of hell as well as a hell of heaven (see Paradise Lost 1.254~ 55). °° Martin, 127. *'Stuart M. Sperry, “Byron and the meaning of Manfred,” Criticism 16 (1974): 193. Leslie A. Marchand, ed., Byron's Letters & Journals vol. 4 (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1975) 174 -5. Martin Corbett, Byron and Tragedy (London: MacMillan Press, 1988) 27. *Daniel M. McVeigh, “Manfred’s Curse,” Studies in English Literature 22 (1982): 609. 3Marchand, Byron: A Biography, 652. °° Peter Quenell, ed., Byron ~ A Self Portrait vol.1 (London: John Murray, 1950) 346. 7Quenell, vol.2, 451 Lovell, 112. *°Moore, 192. “Moore, 193. “Sperry, 193. 477 In a letter dated 17th September 1813, Byron described his mood to Augusta: may thank the strength of my constitution that has enabled me to bear all this, but those who bear the longest and the most do not suffer the least. I do not think that a human being could being could endure more mental torture than that woman has directly & indirectly inflicted upon me ~ within the present year.” BLJ V, 95. McVeigh, 610. “Tn his biography of Byron, Moore says, “...it is invariably to be borne in mind, that his very defects were among the elements of his greatness, and that it was out of the struggle between the good and evil principles of his nature that his mighty genius drew his strength. A more genial and fostering introduction into life, while it would doubtless have softened and disciplined his mind, might have impaired its vigour; and the same influences that would have diffused smoothness and happiness over his life might have been fatal to its glory.” BL/, 244, 48CHAPTER THREE The Literary Marketplace of the Nineteenth Century and the Portrayal of the Byronic Hero This chapter will delve into nineteenth-century literary culture and how Byron’s shrewd understanding of the demands of his literary audience influenced his conception of the Byronic Hero. In order to discuss the literary scene then, this chapter will focus on the role of the publishers as well as the reviews, newspapers, periodicals and magazines in promoting the readership of literary works in the nineteenth century. It will examine how the reading public relied on these sources to leam about the latest and most fashionable texts in the market. Next, I will discuss the impact of the Byronic hero on the reading public at the time. The Byronic hero’s exciting adventures provided entertainment and escapism as it helped lift the public’s spirits after the post-war period, especially among the lower classes, Byron's depiction of the Byronic hero’s bravery and chivalry towards women also won the approval of female readers who, under the influence of women writers at the time, had become increasingly aware of their inferior position in a patriarchal society. In addition, this chapter will deal with Byron’s best-selling Turkish Tales, where I will focus on two of Byron’s tales, namely The Giaour and The Corsair. These tales were selected not only for Byron’s portrayal of their courageous heroes but also due to their huge popularity and enormous success in the literary market. The Giaour was the first Turkish tale written and considered the most critically acclaimed, while The Corsair ‘was Byron’s most widely read and best-selling poem. 49The reading publ the eighteenth century The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were a time of cultural, social, economic, and political change. The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and the passing of the first Reform Bill in 1832 marked the beginning of a political movement, which witnessed the promotion of human rights and civil liberties against established systems of absolutist governments. Democratic ideas that form the constitutional basis of modern Western societies were developed and circulated in a political and cultural climate in the century between the Glorious Revolution and the French Revolution.' The huge political, social and economic developments from the eighteenth century onwards resulted inthe growth of the reading public in society at the time. Among the important factors for the growth of the reading public include an increase in the population at the time. The population in England rose from 7.0 million in the 1750s to 15.4 million in 1831. This enormous growth in the population coupled with an Evangelical zeal in teaching people to read helped to produce a huge increase in literacy (Everest, 72). The enormous increase in the population also helped to sustain the Industrial Revolution, which both directly and indirectly contributed to the growth of the reading public. Firstly, technological innovations such as a modern transport system and the mechanization of papermaking enabled the mass production of reading matter and its distribution across the country.’ Next, readership was no longer confined to the upper classes. As a result of growing prosperity and the cheapness of labour, the middle classes. could afford the time for reading, as they were able to hire others to do their tasks. The lower classes, on the other hand, had to contend with long working hours and their reading was largely confined to Sundays. When workers had leisure time on their hands, music 50halls and spectator sports competed with reading as a means of distraction, excitement and release. As culture and sports became less elitist and increasingly public pursuits, they provoked the desire for social emulation, which in turn stimulated increasing consumption and expenditure.’ During this time, a competitive literary market emerged where literature became a profitable business venture. Publishers and distributors competed against one another by looking out for saleable value of the contents of works produced and promoting them through various methods of advertising and marketing.’ The growing demand for reading matter led to a growing number of publishers and booksellers who supplied that demand, From 1740 to the 1790s the demand for books rose from about 400 in 200 towns to nearly 1000 in more than 300 places. A key factor in this business venture was that the distribution and production of literature was determined by the advanced value of the writing and agreed upon in financial terms by the co-operation of the whole literary culture. For instance, Byron’s good friend Thomas Moore received from Longman in December 1814 an advance of 3,000 pounds for Lalla Rookh before a single word of it had been written (Everest, 70). An important development in the eighteenth century literary market was that the functions of printer, bookseller and publisher, which had previously been provided by the same business enterprise, now functioned separately. One of the oldest, independent publishers and perhaps the most influential of all British publishing houses was John Murray Publishing House founded by John Murray in 1768. In 1803, his son John Murray Jr, inherited the business and quickly showed a literary astuteness which would firmly establish the company on the publishing map.’ Other notable publishers at the time were 51Thomas Longman, Archibald Constable and William Blackwood. In spite of the mechanization of the trade, books remained a relatively expensive commodity, so that authors who broke into print primarily did so in the periodical press. From the 1760s to the end of the century the number of periodicals in London rose from more than thirty to over eighty. The multiplication of national newspapers, magazines, reviews and other periodical publications helped to cultivate standards of taste among the reading public.° As a result, booksellers had to face stiff competition in the competitive climate: Public interest was stimulated by the attempts at comprehensive critical reviewing and by the publishing of readers’ contributions to the magazines. ‘Newspaper advertisements puffed ‘latest’ books by those said to be the most skilful or up-to-date authors.” The growth of the reading public brought about a significant rise of the reviews in the literary market. The introduction of the reviews like the Edinburgh Review of which Murray became part owner made literature more and more accessible to the public. The emergence of the Romantic writers during this period coincided with the growth of these new forms of literature. The Edinburgh Review was established by Lord Francis Jeffrey in collaboration with two of his liberal Whig friends in 1802. This hugely influential quarterly magazine was a platform for the best-known writers of the day. The review was novel as it aimed at presenting selected publications in fewer but longer and more sophisticated articles than had previously been common. It was in the Romantic period that best-sellers became a wide-spread phenomenon. Lord Francis Jeffrey became editor from 1803 until 1829, and it was under him that the magazine enjoyed its heyday as one of the most influential arbiters of taste in Europe.’ Initially hostile towards Byron as seen in his attack on Byron’s early poems, which in turn drew a satirical response from Byron in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, Jeffrey was eventually won over by the 52originality of Byron’s subsequent poems. He was especially drawn to the ingenious persona of the Byronic hero in the poems. Jeffrey’s glowing reviews made a huge impact on the reading public who immediately lapped up the works of this latest fashionable writer in the market. The success of his poems not only brought Byron fame and money but also raised Jeffrey's profile as a distinguished and influential critic as well as helped increase the sales of the magazines. The huge public receptions towards these reviews are evident with the wide circulation in the market. The Edinburgh Review had reached a circulation of 14,000 readers by 1818. By 1817, the Quarterly Review which was launched by Murray had a circulation of 10,000. In 1814, an estimate of 50,000 readers read 13,000 copies of Edinburgh Review but by 1820, it had reached about 500,000 readers within a month of its publication. These figures make it clear that this readership was no longer exclusively located within the upper classes. Apart from the Edinburgh and the Quarterly, at least sixty other periodicals carried reviews between 1802 and 1824, the majority being monthly publications such as the Monthly Review (1749 - 1845) and the Critical Review (1756 - 1817). Magazine reviewers writing for the Gentlemen's Magazine (1731 — 1868), the Scots Magazine (1739 — 1826), the European Magazine and London Review (1782 — 1826), the Monthly Mirror (1795 - 1811) and most notably, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (1817- 1880), were operating on a monthly basis. Finally, weekly papers such as the radical Examiner (1808 ~ 1881) carried reviews on a regular basis.'° The birth of reviews and magazines reflected the growth of the reading public and the need for critical evaluation in an expanding literary marketplace: 53Certainly the rise in the popularity of reviews may partly be accounted for by fashionable demands for the most recent opinions on the most recent ‘books. But it probably also depended upon subscription ftom a large proportion of the middle classes whose educational limitations encouraged them to regard the reviews as providing them with an assured basis for their reading, a basis protected by what was imagined to be the public consensus. This protection would have been of particular importance to those anxious to have their new place in the fashionable hierarchy confirmed (Martin, 35). The reviews were able to fulfil the needs of the public. They taught them what to read as well as think. The reviewers allowed themselves to adopt a superior attitude as they were assured that the majority of readers were bound to accept their judgement. In Fiction and the Reading Public, Q.D. Leavis points out that the eighteenth- century peasant who leamed to read had to read what the gentry and the university men read; that the nineteenth-century readers, on the other hand, are properly spoken of not as the ‘public’ but as ‘publics.”'’ Philip W. Martin has argued that these readers looked for a guidance that was provided especially by the reviews, in an extension of the guiding functions provided by eighteenth-century moralist periodicals like The Tatler and The Spectator (34). Apart from these reviews, newspapers were also responsible for encouraging the reading habit among the population. According to Southey, in 1807, there ‘were some 50,000 people in England who read the news every day and conversed upon it. Newspapers became established as a respectable way of life among the middle class public partly due to the value and status granted to the informed reader. It was a fact that being well informed on the most recent happenings in society was an access to formal conversation, The role of newspapers therefore, played an important role in the world of the regency. '* 54‘With the emergence of the critical reviews and periodicals, magazines as well as newspapers, readership was no longer confined to the upper classes although these largely remained the superior group. While this upper class reading public continued to exist, audiences for books, magazines, newspapers, and other reading matter were as diverse as never before. Although the reading of the bulk of lower-class readers was confined to penny shockers and sensational weeklies, a small but significant minority from these classes pursued more serious reading relying on cheap second-hand books and reprints of standard classics. It was only in the second half of the nineteenth century that cheap reprints became customary and free public libraries were established. Works of respectable poets in the nineteenth century such as Burns and Byron were popularised for a mass reading public in series such as Dicks’ English Library of Standard Works.” Friedrich Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England argues that it is the working class rather than the middle classes or the aristocracy who genuinely read with pleasure important works of poetry and polities. He maintained that: ...it is the workers who are most familiar with the poetry of Shelley and Byron. Shelley's prophetic genius has caught their imagination, while Byron attracts their sympathy by his sensuous fire and by the virulence of his satire against the existing order. The middle classes, on the other hand, have on their shelves only ruthlessly expurgated editions of these writers...prepared to suit the hypocritical moral standards of the bourgeoise. 272) The growth of the reading public in the nineteenth century brought ‘ignificant changes in the style of writing and perception of the romantic writers. J.W. Jaunders defines the “Romantic dilemma”: One insistent claim made by the Romantics was that writers, especially poets, had a special vision of truth which ought not to be socially corrupted or circumscribed: they should be free to write as their inspiration took them; it was enough for society to protect their special gifts and profit from their 55prophecies and insight. The Romantic dilemma, as far as the literary profession was concerned, was how to adapt the social context of literature to make room for this new claim. The dilemma became sharper when the reading public demanded an immediate and practical use for writers’ dreams and visions, not as a means to truth and understanding of life, but as, a kind of anodyne, a means of escape from life. Wide schisms were to open between what the public expected of literature and what the writers wanted to do: after an age of most extraordinary unbalance, producing in extreme instances literary schizophrenia, '* From this extract, it can be concluded that the reading public, especially the lower classes, were looking to literature as a form of escapism from the drudgery of their daily post-war existence. The political turmoil as well as the widespread unemployment and poverty had dampened the spirits of the people which led to disillusionment and despair. It was Lord Byron, more than any other Romantic writer, who provided this escapism for them through his poems and more importantly, his conception of the inimitable Byronic hero persona. Byron together with Walter Scott were the most successful writers in the early nineteenth century. At the height of their popularity, Scott received 2,000 guineas in advance for Rokeby (1812) from Ballantyne and John Murray offered Byron 1000 guineas for The Giaour (1813). Scott's Marmion was considered a best seller when it was published in 1808 and sold 2000 copies in its first month while The Lady of The Lake (1810) went on to sell 20,300 copies in the first year after publication. '* Lord Byron eventually superseded Scott in popularity and attention given by reviewers. Although his works were rejected by a number of publishers including Mr. Miller and Thomas Longman, it was John Murray who finally published Byron’ poems having expressed his desire to publish Byron's works before. With his foresight and shrewd business instincts, John Murray decided to take a financial gamble with the publication of Byron’s first major epic, Child Harold's Pilgrimage for which he paid the 56author 500 guineas.'® The gamble paid off handsomely for both Murray as well as Byron. John Murray made his fortune and John Murray publishing house was destined towards literary legacy. Byron’s first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage sold 4,500 copies in less than six months in 1812, and The Corsair (1814) caused a sensation by selling 10,000 copies on the day of its publication.'” As stated earlier, this success of his poems were mainly attributed to Byron’s original conceptualisation of the Byronic Hero which was destined to influence other heroic figures in nineteenth-century literature as well as the future generation. The huge popularity of the tales were testimonies to the Byronic Hero’s popularity among the masses. They indicated society's fascination for romantic, courageous, swashbuckling heroes. The charismatic persona of the Byronic hero which shall be explored later on in this chapter had indeed made a deep impact on the nineteenth century reading public elevating his status as a cultural icon in the Romantic period. Although Byron’s popularity transcended class and gender, it must be noted that a majority of the reading public who read Byron’s works were in fact female readers. Itis therefore, relevant to delve into the issues of gender and its’ relation to the growth of the female writers at the time to understand the appeal of Byron’s poems to women. The concept of gender was developed by feminists in the 1790s as a means of recognising that women do not relate to men in the same way in every culture and that the position of women in society has varied over time. It has described women’s relationship to men in particular societies as well as the experiences of women and men in movements for political and social emancipation.’ In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, social and economic changes led to a division of classes in society. Social conflict existed between the gentry and upper middle class. This situation led many people to resort to 37reading as a means of escapism. Women, in particular faced conventional restrictions as professionals, intellectuals, and writers. With limited education and the range of domestic and social duties allowed to them, women were seen as the weaker sex in every class confronting superior male-dominated, patriarchal society. ‘The 1790s in Britain marked the beginning of the feminist movement in modem European culture. This was a period which supported masculinist dominance over female intellectual inferiority. Consequently, there was a new sense of empowerment among women writers and a sense of cohesive identity among the working class. Women writers in England of the Restoration and early eighteenth century consisted of Evangelical writers, aristocratic writers and professional writers. These women were seeking their own identity and independence through their writing.'? At about this time an important and influential movement known as The Bluestockings were formed in London in the 1750s and 1760s under the leadership of Elizabeth Montagu. The network sponsored by the Bluestockings succeeded in collaborating with their more educated and refined menfolk in a world where women were generally excluded from university education, Among the intellectual activities carried out by the Bluestokings were literary criticism, translation of classics and intellectual debates. The movement eventually exerted a strong force on literary culture at that time. The Bluestocking movement consisted of women of wealth and high social position. These ‘women catered to the upper classes who were getting increasingly frustrated with the lack of intellectual stimulation in their lives, As a result of a division of classes in society brought about by political and economic changes, women of the elite and upper middle classes could afford leisurely pursuits. Reading and writing engaged the attention, 58stimulated the mind and gave fashionable women something to do with their free time (Curran, 181). The disengagement of bourgeois women or ‘ladies of leisure’ from the necessities of work, therefore, contributed to the spread of literacy and the appeal of the literary among these women. Other notable women writers at the time were Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah More and Frances Bumey, followed by Mary Hays, Elizabeth Hamilton and Felicia Hemans who later went on to become the best-selling English poet of the nineteenth century. 7” ‘The emergence of women writers who dominated the literary scene influenced the predominantly female reading public's perception of women’s role in society. They became increasingly aware of their social and intellectual roles as well as inferior status in the male-dominated world. Among other things, these women writers expressed the ills of society and other issues pertaining to women in their writings, which include patriarchal attitudes in society. They also depicted in their heroines the typical nineteenth-century feminine virtues such as selflessness, piety and faultlessness in her propriety. Female readers who read their books could easily identify with the issues depicted in these novels and poems. Interestingly, the themes of feminine virtue and loyalty to patriarchal leaders were not only the domain of women writers but were also found in the selected verse romances of male poets such as Scott, Southey, Campbell, Moore, Wordsworth and Byron, Caroline Franklin in Byron's Heroines observes that in both Scott and Southey, romantic love is devalued in favour of some domestic or conjugal attachment. In the tales of Wordsworth especially, the heroine as wife and mother often becomes a pathetic figure. Sexuality in women, as well as men, is recognized as a source of power, but when uncontrolled it is associated with evil and possible subversion. 59Consequently, the virtuous, dutiful heroine who abjures sexual passion and its dangers is idealized as the protector of family, morality, and even the state (280). Although Byron in his Oriental tales employs some of these same ingredients, his flawed heroes, contrary to prevailing conventions, are not threats to the heroines but rather their would-be liberators and lovers. His heroines were not the chaste maidens of Scott and Southey but victims of political and sexual oppression in feudal societies. Unlike other Regency heroines, Leila, Zuleikha, and Medora are passive victims of their own forbidden passions and are ultimately destroyed by patriarchal oppression. On the other hand, Gulnare and Kaled are shown to be active, passionate women who assume masculine virtues and role of liberator.?' It was in the distinctive portrayal of the Byronic hero that set Byron apart from other Romantic poets at the time, The charisma of the Byronic hero coupled with his chivalrous nature and sensitivity towards women in the poems were highly appealing to female readers. It gave them hope and comfort that there are heroic men out there who were willing to fight against powerful enemies simply to uphold women’s dignity and pride. The fact that the Byronic hero had flaws and weaknesses like everyone else and was not afraid to expose his vulnerability also endeared him to women readers who often sympathized with his suffering. Among Lord Byron’s best-selling poems, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage had sold very well but it was the Turkish Tales that brought Byron fame, money and accolades. ‘The Turkish Tales were published when Byron was living in London and at the height of his fame. Each romance was immediately and astoundingly successful. The Bride of Abydos (1813) sold 6,000 copies in the first month, The Corsair (1814) sold 10,000 on the first day of publication, Lara (1814) and The Siege of Corinth (1816) each sold out first 60editions of 6,000 within a few weeks. Kelvin Everest concedes “this degree of popularity centers significantly into the formation of the “Byronic’ Hero and personality as that of a man consciously in the glare of public gaze, and yet alienated, increasingly from the values and the moral approval of that public.””* Despite its best selling success, it is ironic that Byron himself did not think much of his Eastern Tales or any of his works written between 1811 - 1816 for that matter. Byron regarded his Eastern Tales as well as some of his shorter pieces to be inferior to his other works and dismissed their popularity as poor public taste. In Byron’s own description, The Giaour was “foolish fragments” (BLJ 3:105), The Bride of Abydos was “horrible enough” (BLJ 3: 160) and Lara was “too little narrative and too metaphysical” (BLJ 4: 295). He also felt that they were not up to literary standard as these tales were hurriedly written, The Bride of Abydos was composed in four days and The Corsair in ten days, which Byron took to be proof of “my want of judgement in publishing” (BL 4: 77). Having said that however, Byron did eventually decide to cash in on the popularity of his Easter tales after this huge success by exploiting the Eastern setting in his poems. As he wrote to Moore in his letter dated August 1813: Stick to the East;the oracle, Stael, told me it was only poetical policy. The North, South, and West, have all been exhausted; but from the East, we have nothing but Southey’s unsaleables, - and these he has contrived to spoil, by adopting only their most outrageous fictions. (Moore, 255) Although falling below his own standards of poetic excellence, The Turkish Tales were considered among his most notable achievements. Jerome McGann concedes that while these poems are “not consciously intellectual, they are intellectually compelling” and he says that in these narratives “the actual human issues with which poetry is 61concemed are resituated in a variety of idealized localities.”®* In other words, they reflect the society in which Byron lived in and the variety of ideologies contained in that society, Byron’s first tale, The Giaour (a term which means ‘infidel’) tell the story of the hero’s unsuccessful attempt to abduct his lover Leila from her husband Hassan. Her faithlessness to Hassan is discovered, and she is bound in a sack and tossed into the sea, and the Giaour avenges her death by ambushing and brutally murdering Hassan who has embarked on a journey to find a new wife. The Giaour sends word back to Hassan’s mother of the murder, and then withdraws to spend his last days in a monastery — not, however, to seek atonement for his crime but to assure the solitude that his suffering demands.* Marilyn Butler calls The Giaour: “...a love story, one of those classic late- Enlightenment triangles of the Werther type that oppose the free and intuitive behaviour of illicit lovers to the religious propriety of the legal husband...*(89). Following her suggestion, it is possible to see the central theme of the work as the opposition between individual needs and society's conventions. Leila’s love for the Giaour is at complete odds with her prescribed role in society. From this perspective, the sanction imposed on her is symbolically significant; her escape from the stifling confines of the harem is punished with her imprisonment in the significantly more stifling sack. Once shut inside the sack, presumably gagged, Leila is definitely sealed off from the external world, denied the right to communicate and erased as an autonomous subject, the bearer of an independent perspective. The irony is that as much as the British prided themselves on their enlightened view of women, it highlighted the limitations of women’s rights in British 62society. Byron described Leila as a ‘female slave.’ Leila became a symbol of the exploitation of women. In punishing Leila, Byron is emphasizing society’s total disregard for women’s feelings and desire to assert her individuality. She is an unimportant, voiceless member of society created solely for the total submission to man, John S. Mill in The Subjection of Women draws a picture of woman’ life in the nineteenth century: All women are brought up from the very earliest years, in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women ... that it is their nature to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections. (232) Women's. lence was cherished as a virtue in the past, it was considered to be women’s rightful role at home and the accepted norm in society. Submission, docility, passivity and silence were virtues expected to be inscribed in a woman’s being. It was the perceived ideal that woman was bom to “suffer and be still,” even to the point of martyrdom.”* In portraying Leila as voiceless, passive, and an object of devotion for men, Byron is therefore acknowledging the social reality at that time. ‘The Giaour's anger and avenging of her death reveals his commitment to rescue her integrity and humanity from a social nom that victimizes women, His conviction is so strong that he even feels his brutal murder of Hassan is justified. For both Leila and the Giaour, society’s sanctions strike effectively: Leila is destroyed materially, while the Giaour is destroyed psychologically. All that is left to him, after Leila’s death is 10 incorporate the violence, the death principle that governs his world, He conforms to the horizon of possibility offered by his society, he exploits the rebels for his own private ends 63and becomes the mirror image of the “tyrant” Hassan (Poole, 9). This specularity is clearly suggested by the text itself: “And o’er him bends that foe with brow/As dark as his that bled below” (672 — 4) The Giaour’s tendemess towards Leila and his fearless courage in championing for her cause won the approval of women readers who were also captivated with this passionate, romantic and somewhat mysterious, larger than life hero. As with all Byronic heroes, the Giaour was also physically attractive. He was a strikingly good- Jooking hero who had all the characteristics of the Gothic Villain, with his tell tale features, the bitter smile and his evil eye. Oft will his glance the gazer rue, For in it lurks that nameless spell, Which speaks, itself unspeakable, A spirit yet unquelled and high, ‘That claims and keeps ascendancy; And like the bird whose pinions quake, But cannot fly the gazing snake, Will others quail beneath this look, Nor’scape the glance they scarce can brook. _ (837 — 845) The idea of an attractive, romantic, brave hero fighting fearlessly for justice and women’s honour appeals to. women readers who fantasize about the existence of such a hero in their own lives. In spite of his heroic attributes, however, the Giaour as with all other Byronic Heroes is not without flaws and these flaws further endears him to readers, The Giaour has the qualities of a Noble Outlaw and is described as “having been wronged cither by intimate personal friends, or by society in general, and his rebellion is thus always given a plausible motive” (Thorslev, 86). Thus, his remorse, defiance and gloom are all part of the “dark side” to his personality. In this poem, the Giaour’s rebellion andviolent attack on Hassan is therefore justified by his need to avenge Leila’s murder. In the fragment beginning “The Mind, that broods o’er guilty woes” (422), the Giaour’s hate of Hassan and his desire for vengeance is presented as a desperate substitute for his love, a way of silencing the pain and guilt caused by Leila’s death. The Giaour then retreats to a life of gloom and isolation. He becomes a recluse and half-mad character as this epilogue describes: Much in his visions mutters he Of maiden ‘whelmed beneath the sea; Of sabres clashing-foemen flying, ‘Wrongs aveng’d — and Moslem dying. On cliff he has been known to stand, And rave as to some bloody hand Fresh sever’d from its parent limb, Invisible to all but him, Which beckons onward to his grave, And lures to leap into the wave. (822-31) Gloom and pessimism have always been a part of Byron’s world. Ever since childhood, Byron has had insecurities due to the physical deformity of his left foot which was further aggravated by his temperamental relationship with his mother. Sir Walter Scott's recollections of Byron in his letter to Moore 1815 stated that while Byron was very animated during a conversation, he was often “ melancholy, - almost gloomy” (Moore, 281), Remorse, gloom and melancholy are typical traits of the Byronic hero, In the poem’s long final scene, when he enters the monastery, the Giaour is described as alone even in company, possessed of a unique sensibility that is unfathomable, mysterious and superior to the general lot of humanity. Like Leila, the Giaour is condemned to utter isolation. No one in the monastery knows his past, his deeds, 65his race, his feelings or beliefs and his confession. In fact, his sheer mysteriousness and distance adds to his aura and appeal. He remains a mystery even in death. Bernard Blackstone stresses that one of the reasons for the popularity of the Tales is their authenticity.’ Byron is able to convince his readers that what he is writing about is based on what he himself has seen and experienced. The Giaour relates the drowning of the Turkish girl in the opening lines, derived from a real life episode in which Byron was directly involved. In his letter to Moore dated December 5, 1813, he wrote: “But to describe the feelings of that situation were impossible ~ it is icy even to recollect them” (Moore, 211). In another instance, Byron asked his friend the Marquis of Sligo to furnish him with his recollections on the subject which Byron had narrated to him earlier, Inthe letter dated August 31, 1813 Sligo replied: ‘You have requested me to tell you all that I heard at Athens about the affair of that girl who was so near being put an end to while you were there; you have asked me to mention every circumstance, in the remotest, degree relating to it, which I heard. ....The new governer, unaccustomed to have the same intercourse with the Christians as his predecessor, had of course the barbarous Turkish ideas with regard to women. In consequence, and in compliance with the strict letter of the Mohammedan law, he ordered this girl to be sewed up in a sack, and thrown into the sea, - as is, indeed quite customary at Constaninople. As you were returning from bathing in the Piraeus, you met the procession going down to execute the sentence of the Waywode on this unfortunate girl... (Moore, 178) According to Blackstone, this authencity factor was one of the main reasons that Byron’s works overtook Walter Scott's in popularity and why Scott’s verse romances, located mostly in the idealised Middle Ages and lacking that sense of passion, declined in popularity (118), Jeffrey in his review believes that the distinctive factor that sets Byron’s poem apart from others is that they were not just figments of imagination but thepresentation of familiar surroundings based on actual occurrences of the time which readers could identify with. This authenticity factor allows readers to experience the passions and feelings of the characters by empathising with their sufferings and rejoicing at their happiness as if it were their own.”* Byron’s next tale The Corsair was begun and completed in the last fortnight of December 1813. Conrad is the leader of pirates in an outlaw band. He anticipates a battle with the neighbouring Pacha of Coron and so decides to attack Coron while the Pacha and his host of warriors are having a celebration, Conrad and his band raid the palace but suddenly the palace catches fire. Conrad succeeds in saving the women, but the delay costs him the battle. He is captured and languishes in prison, awaiting execution. Gulnare, the Pacha’s first wife whom Conrad saved in the fire arrives secretly to offer Conrad release, Conrad is not anxious to be saved but at last relents for Medora’s sake. Gulnare then murders her husband in his sleep after he accuses her of infidelity. She then flees with Conrad to meet Medora but unfortunately they return too late. Medora, in fear of Conrad’s death, has died. In his agony of grief, Conrad disappears from the island forever.? ‘The depiction of Conrad’s leadership and his ability to command the undying loyalty of his comrades clearly embodies the traits of the Noble Outlaw in him. Readers are drawn to this swashbuckling, passionate romantic hero who possesses admirable courage and a fighting spirit. Beneath his tough exterior though, Conrad displays a soft and compassionate nature. In the poem, Conrad’s chivalrous rescue of the women in his Moslem enemy's harem is evident when he risks his life to save the women in the palace during the battle with Pasha, He not only lost the battle by saving the women but his 67