DOCSLIB.ORG

Images of Masculınıty in Lord Byron's

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Images of Masculınıty in Lord Byron's IMAGES OF MASCULINITY IN LORD BYRON’S TURKISH TALES GÖNÜL BAKAY Bahçeşehir University Abstract : Forms of knowledge regarding masculinity and femininity are socially constructed and discursively constituted. In this sense, cultural productions play an indispensible role in both representing and shaping masculinities. Making use of the insights provided by Deleuze and Guattari, this paper examines performatively constituted masculinities in Lord Byron’s “Turkish Tales”, with particular emphasis on the portrayal of male identity as fluid, metamorphic and capable of multiple possibilities. Representations of masculinity in Byron’s “Turkish Tales” clearly illustrates that masculinity is not a fixed/universal concept, but one that would be better understood in light of Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of becoming and may vary from one region to another. Keywords : Deleuze and Guattari, Lord Byron, masculinity, orientalism, Turkish Tales. So long as there are battles to be fought, wars to be won, heights to be scaled, hard work to be done, some of us will have to “act like men”. (Gilmore qtd. in Connell 2005:32) Masculinity does not exist except in contrast wih femininity. A culture which does not treat women and men as bearers of polarized character types, at least in principle, does not have a concept of masculinity in the sense of European/American culture. (Connell 2005:68) 1. Introduction Representations of masculinity in Byron’s Turkish Tales clearly illustrate that masculinity is not a fixed/universal concept, but one that may vary from one region to another, and would be better understood in light of Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of becoming. Deleuze and Guattari’s (2009) work has been highy important in helping to illuminate the complexities of identity as a “desiring production”. As they suggest (2009: 12), “desire is not simply a discursively anchored need or lack, but a requirement to be in the social world to become an individual, male or female”. For the purposes of this paper, I am particularly interested in their articulation of desire as the main dynamic informing the production of subjectivity. Drawing on the ideas explored in Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , I try to show that their theorizing on subjectivity is instrumental in understanding and decoding performances of gender in literary works. Quoting Nietzsche, Smith (2007:69-70) observes that “we all contain a vast confusion of contradictory drives. We have multiplicities not unities (...) There is another drive that is fitting these drives. So what we call thinking, willing and feeling are all merely a relation of these drives to each other”. Quoting from Deleuse and Guattari, Smith (2007:71) also states that “drives are simply desiring machines themselves”. Forms of knowledge regarding masculinity and femininity are socially constructed and discursively constituted. In this sense, cultural productions play an B.A.S. , vol. XXI, 2015 18 indispensible role in both representing and shaping masculinities. Utilising insights provided by Deleuze and Guattari, this paper examines performatively constituted masculinities in Lord Byron’s Turkish Tales , with particular emphasis on the portrayal of male identity as fluid, metamorphic and capable of multiple possibilities. In the words of Deleuze and Guattari (2009:75), “we are not saying that Oedipus and castration do not amount to anything. We are Oedipalized, we are castrated; psychoanalysis didn’t invent these operations, to which it merely lends the new resources and methods of its genius. But is this sufficient to silence the outcry of desiring-production: We are all schizos! We are all perverts! We are all libidos that are viscuous and fluid”. 2. Byron’s Turkish Tales Lord Byron spent a lifetime following and realising his desires, writing books that were explicity devoted to the blurring and subversion of Eurocentric binarisms. Byron was at home with one sex/two gender relations he came across quite frequently in the East: “Byron’s interest in Levantine homosexuality was not just the fraissor of the sexual tourist, but an integral part of his interest in encompassing Eastern and Western manners” (Leask 2004:112). Byron noted that homosexual relations did by no means hamper the image of vibrant masculinity. He further remarked that, although the Oriental male is proud, brave, a womanizer and an excellent soldier, he also occasionally shows preference for boys and has a sensitive side. In the nuanced portraits he presents, Byron seems to suggest that there is much more to the Turkish male than one finds in stereotypical orientalist depictions. In doing that, he successfully subverts essentialist paradigms and offers a historically grounded reading with regard to representations of masculinity in the East. Byron’s portrayal of masculinities in Turkish Tales also foregrounds territorial, socio-economic and racial differences that inform gender performances and thus show that gender is a structure of social practice that may vary from one territory to another. In “Child Harold Canto II” , the court is reflected as an ideal place for the gratification of pedophilic relations: For boyish minions of unhallowed love, the shameless torch of wild desire is let Caressed, preferred even to woman’s self above. Whose forms for nature’s gentler errors fit. All frailties mote excuse save that which they command. (Byron 1904:63) According to Connel (2005:71), we should remember that masculinity like femininity is a far from simple matter. Not all boys and men experience masculinity in the same way. Masculinity to the extent the term can briefly defined at all,is simultaneously a place in gender relations, the practices through which men and women engage that place in gender, and the effects of these practices in bodily experince, personality and culture. Lord Byron started to employ Oriental themes with Child Harold’s Pilgrimage and continued in The Giaour , The Bride of Abydos , The Corsair , Lara and The Siege of Corinth. “The Giaour” was the first of the Turkish tales to be published. Byron claimed that the tale was inspired by an actual event about which there were several different accounts. He also claimed that he had consorted with 19 ROMANTIC TRANSGRESSIONS AND VICTORIAN SUPERHEROES this girl whom he thought to be Greek, although he later found out that she was Turkish. One day, he learned that she was to be executed – put in a sack and drowned, but he saved her. Byron takes the side of the Muslim hero in the tale, or at least makes the narrator do so. The second part of “The Giaour” can be divided into two sections. The first section tells the story, whereas the second section recounts the dialogue between the fisherman and the monk, who shares Giaour’s story with the fisherman; then the Giaour confesses himself to the monk prior to his death. Hassan is a Turk living in Greece; his wife Leila falls in love with the Giaour. Although he is deeply in love with his wife, he eventually drowns her in the sea, according to Turkish customs and laws. The Giaour, in turn, attacks Hassan and kills him in a pine grove beneath Mount Liakura: Hassan fell, A victim in that lonely dell, There sleeps as the true Osmanlie. (Byron 1904:214) Hassan is depicted as a true Ottoman. He has the characterisitics of the Oriental hero. He is dark-haired, curls his beard, and embodies the image of a man deep in thought, according to Eastern customs. He is also superstitious, believing in the evil eye. He dies like a true Turkish hero, without remorse or regret. In his last moments, he prays to God, like a true Muslim. He called the prophet, but his power Was vain against the vengeful Giaour: He called on Allah- but the word Arose unheeded or unheard. (Byron 1904: 258) It is interesting to note that the fisherman does not condemn Hassan’s punishment of Leilah. He has been influenced by Muslim ethics. Instead, he condemns the Giaour for behaving in disregard of Muslim customs and traditions, according to which adultery is punishable by death. In “The Bride of Abydos”, Selim, the nephew of the ruler Giaffir does not conform to the ideal masculinity type of the East. He is gentle, sensitive to the feelings of women; just the opposite of Giaffir. “The Bride of Abydos” is the second Turkish tale and centers on the characters of Giaffir and his two children, Selim and Zuleika. Byron elaborates on the incestuous relationship between brother and sister. Later, the reader learns that Selim is not Zuleika’s true brother, but her cousin. Zuleika reveals that her love for Selim cannot be deeper or less deep after she learns that they are not brother and sister. Selim becomes the leader of the pirates to avenge his father, who had been killed by Giaffir. He dies during this fight and Zuleika dies from grief. Was Byron reflecting in this tale his incesteous feelings for his half-sister Augusta Leigh and his friend’s wife, Lady Francis Webster? Seniha Gülderen Karsnigi and Salih Okumuş (2002:11) remark that perhaps “being common for him, Byron sought tranquillity in the east and fleeing from his own reality; as well as in attempt to justify himself and his incestuous attraction, he once again uses Eastern setting and Eastern culture to mirror his own situation”. One must admit that the Byronic hero was largely influenced by the Muslim ideal of masculinity. As Sharafuddin (1991:251) states, “Byron is not especially B.A.S. , vol. XXI, 2015 20 sympathetic to the morality of meekness. The virility of the Moslem masculine types attracted Byron”. Selim is depicted as a valiant soldier: A Thousand swords, with Selim’s heart and hand, Waite-wave-defend-destroy-at thy command (Byron 1904:235) Selim’s talk with the Pasha reveals the differences in their characters.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Shelley Meagher – Politics and Persian Mythology in Irish Poetry
    Shelley Meagher Politics and Persian Mythology in Irish Poetry IN 1809 LORD BYRON was prevented by the Napoleonic wars from taking the European Grand Tour. He instead sailed south, through the straits of Gibraltar and across the Mediterranean, to tour Greece and Turkey. On his return he published the first two Cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812), a poem whose hero follows in Byron’s wake eastwards. Gratified by the acclaim Childe Harold received, Byron next published two action poems set in Turkey, The Giaour (1813) and The Bride of Abydos (1813). These fluent ‘Turkish Tales’, as he called them, sold very well and whetted the public’s appetite. On the day Byron’s next Turkish tale, The Corsair, came out in 1814, it sold 10,000 copies. There was one problem. For two and a half years Byron’s friend, Thomas Moore, had been composing a poem set in the Persianate cultures of Mughal India and Persia (as Europeans then termed Iran). Moore was alert to differences between Turkish and Persian culture. But to the general public, both cultures were simply eastern. When sales of Byron’s Turkish poems rocketed, Moore fretted that Byron had stolen his opportunity. Byron tried to allay Moore’s fears. ‘Stick to the East!’ he wrote to Moore in May 1813. ‘The little I have done . is only a “voice in the wilderness” for you; and, if it has had any success, that will only prove that the public is orientalising, and pave the way for you.’1 When, six months later, Byron proceeded to pave Moore’s way further with The Corsair, he knew very well that Moore would be alarmed.
    [Show full text]
  • Correspondence of Lord Byron, with a Friend
    ^M 8£ DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Treasure "Room CORRESPONDENCE LORD BYRON. PRINTED BY JULES DIDOT, SENIOR, PRINTER TO HIS MAJESTY, RUE DD PONT-DK-LODI, N° 6. CORRESPONDENCE WITH A FRIEND, INCLUDING HIS LETTERS TO HIS MOTHER, WRITTEN FROM PORTUGAL, SPAIN, GREECE, AND THE SHORES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN, IN l8og, 1 8lO AND l8l I. ALSO UettHltctioM of fbt $oet. BY THE LATE B. C. DALLAS, ESQ. •» THE WHOLE FORMING An Original Memoir of Lord Byron's Life, FROM 1808 TO 18 I 4- • AND A CONTINUATION AND PRELIMINARY STATEMENT OF THE PROCEEDINGS BY WHICH THE LETTERS WERE SUPPRESSED IN ENGLAND, AT THE SUIT OF. LORD BYRONS EXECUTORS. BY THE REV. A. R. C. DALLAS. VOL. III. PUBLISHED BY A. AND W. GALIGNANI, AT THE ENGLISH, FRENCH, ITALIAN, GERMAN, AND SPA.NISH LIBRARY, l8, RUE VIVIENNE. 4825. 159783 — '3 , CONTENTS. VOL. III. Pages Recollections i — 126 Correspondence of Mr Dallas with Lord Byron, considered to be here ended. —Lord Byron's residence in London enables Mr Dallas to have personal intercourse with him.—January and February, 1812.—Mr Dallas attempts to have the poem entitled Euthanasia suppressed. — Succeeds for the first edition. —Mr Dallas's affection for Lord Byron. —Combats his errors.—His depression of spirits.—His family history and circumstances. —Character of his uncle, Captain George Byron,—his death a great loss to the Poet.—It broke the link with his other family alliances. —Neglected by his relatives at school and college.—His Satire caused him to be beheld with respect, but with awe. —He felt himself alone in London.—His affairs involved.
    [Show full text]
  • History and Vision in Byron, the Shelleys, and Keats Timothy Ruppert
    Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 2008 "Is Not the Past All Shadow?": History and Vision in Byron, the Shelleys, and Keats Timothy Ruppert Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Ruppert, T. (2008). "Is Not the Past All Shadow?": History and Vision in Byron, the Shelleys, and Keats (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1132 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “IS NOT THE PAST ALL SHADOW?”: HISTORY AND VISION IN BYRON, THE SHELLEYS, AND KEATS A Dissertation Submitted to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Timothy Ruppert March 2008 Copyright by Timothy Ruppert 2008 “IS NOT THE PAST ALL SHADOW?”: HISTORY AND VISION IN BYRON, THE SHELLEYS, AND KEATS By Timothy Ruppert Approved March 25, 2008 _____________________________ _____________________________ Daniel P. Watkins, Ph.D. Jean E. Hunter , Ph.D. Professor of English Professor of History (Dissertation Director) (Committee Member) _____________________________ _____________________________ Albert C. Labriola, Ph.D. Magali Cornier Michael, Ph.D. Professor of English Professor of English (Committee Member) (Chair, Department of English) _____________________________ Albert C. Labriola, Ph.D. Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Professor of English iii ABSTRACT “IS NOT THE PAST ALL SHADOW?”: HISTORY AND VISION IN BYRON, THE SHELLEYS, AND KEATS By Timothy Ruppert March 2008 Dissertation Supervised by Professor Daniel P.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bride of Abydos: the Regime of Visibility and the Possibility of Resistance
    Edinburgh Research Explorer The Bride of Abydos: The Regime of Visibility and the Possibility of Resistance Citation for published version: Mole, T 2008, The Bride of Abydos: The Regime of Visibility and the Possibility of Resistance. in B Beatty, T Howe & CE Robinson (eds), Liberty and Poetic Licence: New Essays on Byron. Liverpool University Press. <http://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=11&AS1 =Liberty+and+Poetic+Licence> Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Peer reviewed version Published In: Liberty and Poetic Licence Publisher Rights Statement: © Mole, T. (2008). The Bride of Abydos: The Regime of Visibility and the Possibility of Resistance. In B. Beatty, T. Howe, & C. E. Robinson (Eds.), Liberty and Poetic Licence. Liverpool University Press. General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 24. Sep. 2021 The Bride of Abydos: The Regime of Visibility and the Possibility of Resistance Tom Mole ‘All convulsions end with me in rhyme’ Byron wrote to Thomas Moore, ‘and, to solace my midnights, I have scribbled another Turkish story’ (BLJ III, 184).
    [Show full text]
  • Aesthetic Humanism: the Radical Romantic Vision of Blake and Byron
    Aesthetic Humanism: The Radical Romantic Vision of Blake and Byron By John William Davies, B.A. A Thesis Submitted to the Department of English California State University Bakersfield In Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Master of Arts in English Spring 2013 Copyright By John William Davies 2013 Aesthetic Humanism: The Radical Romantic Vision ofBlake and Byron By John William Davies This thesis has been accepted on behalf ofthe Department ofEnglish by their supervisory committee: Dr. Susan Stafinbil Committee Chair Dr. Steven Frye Aesthetic Humanism: The Radical Romantic Vision of Blake and Byron If Shakespeare “invented the human,” a claim made rather spectacularly by the critic Harold Bloom in a 1998 book, then the six British poets who comprised what was to become known as the Romantic Period perfected the mode. Shakespeare, in Bloom’s terms, depicted interiority in a unique way, allowing his characters to “overhear” themselves, to be self-reflective and existential (or proto-existential). Existentialism proper, along with the whole modern conception of self, has been merely catching up. It is my contention that the Romantics accelerated this paradigm shift by making the figure of The Poet highly subjective in a way it had not been before. Byron is the archetype. The “Byronic Hero” inaugurated in “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” and perfected in “Manfred” and “Don Juan,” is subjectivity (at least male subjectivity) personified, a titillating amalgam of ambition, weakness, androgyny, power, lust; mortality and immortality in locked combat like Jacob and the angel. Only Jacob is not an abstract, allegorical figure here. These characters are Byron, by his own admission “such a strange mélange of good and evil that it would be difficult to describe me” (qtd.
    [Show full text]
  • Byron's Eastern Tales: Eastern Themes and Contexts
    4 Byron's Eastern Tales: Eastern Themes and Contexts Byron's fascination with the Near East and with the margins of Europe continued after the publication of Childe Harold cantos 1 and 2. His series of narrative poems addressing themes of East-West cultural encounter collectively known as the 'Turkish' or 'Eastern' Tales was published between March 1813 and April1816. These poems consist of The Giaour (1813), The Bride ofAbydos (1813), The Corsair (1814), Lara (1814) and The Siege of Corinth (1816). I shall also comment on The Island: or Christian and His Comrades, which Byron published with John Hunt in 1823. Though not an Eastern Tale, The Island is relevant to the present chapter because it deals with 'southernness' and 'northernness' through a number of recognizable orientalist configurations. The result is a reconciliation of difference that Byron represents as impossible in the earlier tales, but one that remains problematic. Furthermore, despite its subtitle's suggestion that Fletcher Christian is the protagonist, The Island takes a lesser mutineer, a 'blue-eyed northern child I Of isles more known to man, but scarce less wild' (2:163-4), as its main character, situating him in a land of exotic, natural abundance and intercultural sexual liberation (a 'bountiful' land, in many senses). 1 Byron's inclination to make casual and dismissive remarks about the worth and sincerity of the Eastern Tales is well known, 2 but the extent of his preoccupation with the Near East nevertheless is captured in a letter to Lord Holland dated 17 November 1813. Replying to Holland's approval of The Giaour and The Bride of Abydos, he wrote, 'My head is full of Oriental names and scenes.'3 The 'Orient' had apparently lodged names and scenes firmly within Byron's mind, but was by this reckoning expressible only in the European conventional terms of classification and imagery.
    [Show full text]
  • Byron's European Impact
    Byron’s European Impact Byron’s European Impact By Peter Cochran Byron’s European Impact By Peter Cochran This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Peter Cochran All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7541-4 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7541-7 “Among those whose importance is greater than it seemed, Byron deserves a high place. On the Continent, such a view would not appear surprising, but in the English-speaking world it may be thought strange. It was on the Continent that Byron was influential, and it is not in England that his spiritual progeny is to be sought. To most of us, his verse seems often poor and his sentiment often tawdry, but abroad his way of feeling and his outlook on life were transmitted and developed and transmuted until they became so wide-spread as to be factors in great events” —Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy.1 Qui est-ce qui lit Byron, maintenant? Même en Angleterre! —Gustave Flaubert.2 1: Routledge, 2010, p.675. 2: Letter to Amélie Bosquet, August 9th 1864; text from << http://flaubert.univ- rouen.fr/correspondance/conard/outils/1864.htm>>.
    [Show full text]
  • European Painting, Poetry, Music
    Wesleyan University The Honors College Synthesis of the Arts in the Romantic Period: European Painting, Poetry, Music by Sophia C. Dumaine Class of 2009 A thesis submitted to the faculty of Wesleyan University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors in English Middletown, Connecticut April, 2009 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor Stephanie Kuduk Weiner for all the time and energy she devoted to this project. Her endless generosity and encouragement made this thesis possible. I would also like to thank Professor Katherine M. Kuenzli for all her wonderful help and guidance. Professors Yonatan Malin and Joseph M. Siry also offered helpful advice for which I am grateful. Finally, I want to thank my parents, my brother, my friends, and my housemates for their consistent support. 3 Table of Contents Introduction 1. Artistic Synthesis of the 1830s: Byron, Delacroix, and Berlioz 2. Artistic Synthesis of the 1850s: Wagner and Baudelaire 3. Coda: The Modern Decadents 4. Works Cited 4 INTRODUCTION “Delacroix, to the glory of our age, has interpreted better than anyone else…. the invisible, the impalpable, the dream, the nerves, the soul; and this he has done—allow me, please, to emphasize this point—with no other means but colour and contour; he has done it better than anyone else—he has done it with the perfection of a consummate painter, with the exactitude of a subtle writer, with the eloquence of an impassioned musician.” -Baudelaire In this quotation, the nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire discusses the synthesis of the arts in 1830s Paris, where artists such as Eugene Delacroix and Hector Berlioz broke away from strict boundaries between the arts that had been established during the Classical period in order now to merge different art forms together.
    [Show full text]
  • The Quest for Truth and Beauty
    PART 3 The Quest for Truth and Beauty La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 1893. John Williams Waterhouse. Oil on canvas, 44.09 x 31.89 in. Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darnstadt, Germany. “I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affections and the truth of imagination—what the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth—whether it existed before or not.” —John Keats 841 John William Waterhouse/Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, Germany/Bridgeman Art Library 00841841 U4P3-845482.inddU4P3-845482.indd Sec2:841Sec2:841 11/29/07/29/07 12:49:5612:49:56 PMPM BEFORE YOU READ Byron’s Poetry MEET GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON eorge Gordon, Lord Byron—aristocrat, In his own poet, member of Parliament, athlete, words, “I Gexpatriate, and freedom fighter—was awoke one perhaps the most colorful figure of his day. morning and found myself famous.” “Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life, His books sold well, and he influenced art and fashion, as well as literature, The evening beam that smiles the with his flamboyant style. In addition, as a member clouds away, of the House of Lords, he championed liberal politi- And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!” cal causes. For example, he bravely defended the rebelling Nottingham weavers, whose jobs were —Lord Byron, The Bride of Abydos threatened by new textile machines. Soon, however, this extraordinarily handsome poet—with brown curly hair, fine features, and Descended from two noble but flamboyant and vio- intensely brilliant eyes—saw his fame turn to noto- lent families, Byron inherited his title and a large riety.
    [Show full text]
  • TURKISH TALES”: an INTRODUCTION Peter Cochran
    1 BYRON’S “TURKISH TALES”: AN INTRODUCTION Peter Cochran Sequence of composition and publication These six poems consolidated Byron’s fame – or notoriety – throughout the world, after the publication of Childe Harold I and II in March 1812. The Giaour was started in London between September 1812 and March 1813, first published by John Murray in late March 1813, and finally completed December 1813, after having, in Byron’s words, “lengthened its rattles” (BLJ III 100) from 407 lines in the first draft to 1334 lines in the twelfth edition. The Bride of Abydos was drafted in London in the first week of November 1813, was fair- copied by November 11th, and was first published by Murray on December 2nd 1813, almost simultaneous with the last edition of The Giaour . The Corsair was drafted mostly at Six Mile Bottom, the home of Byron’s half-sister Augusta Leigh, near Newmarket. Canto I was started on December 18th 1813, and Canto II on December 22nd 1813. The fair copy was started between December 27th and 31st 1813, and final proof corrections were made on January 16th or 17th 1814; the poem was first published by Murray on February 1st 1814. The first canto of Lara was started in London on May 15th 1814, and the draft of Canto 2 started June 5th of the same year, and finished on June 12th. The poem was fair-copied between June 14th and 23rd, and first published by Murray, anonymously, with Samuel Rogers’ Jacqueline: a Tale, shortly after August 5th 1814. The Siege of Corinth is probably based on much earlier material.
    [Show full text]
  • The Theatre of Shelley
    Jacqueline Mulhallen The Theatre of Shelley OpenBook Publishers To access digital resources including: blog posts videos online appendices and to purchase copies of this book in: hardback paperback ebook editions Go to: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/27 Open Book Publishers is a non-profit independent initiative. We rely on sales and donations to continue publishing high-quality academic works. Jacqueline Mulhallen has studied and worked as an actor and writer in both England and Australia and won a scholarship to study drama in Finland. She worked as performer and writer with Lynx Theatre and Poetry and her plays Sylvia and Rebels and Friends toured England and Ireland (1987-1997). Publications include ‘Focus on Finland’, Theatre Australia, 1979; (with David Wright) ‘Samuel Johnson: Amateur Physician’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1982; ‘Sylvia Pankhurst’s Northern Tour’, www.sylviapankhurst. com, 2008; ‘Sylvia Pankhurst’s Paintings: A Missing Link’, Women’s History Magazine, 2009 and she is a contributor to the Oxford Handbook of the Georgian Playhouse 1737-1832 (forthcoming). Jacqueline Mulhallen The Theatre of Shelley Cambridge 2010 Open Book Publishers CIC Ltd., 40 Devonshire Road, Cambridge, CB1 2BL, United Kingdom http://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2010 Jacqueline Mulhallen. Some rights are reserved. This book is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. This license allows for copying any part of the work for personal and non-commercial use, providing author attribution is clearly stated. Details of allowances and restrictions are available at: http://www.openbookpublishers.com As with all Open Book Publishers titles, digital material and resources associated with this volume are available from our website: http://www.openbookpublishers.com ISBN Hardback: 978-1-906924-31-7 ISBN Paperback: 978-1-906924-30-0 ISBN Digital (pdf): 978-1-906924-32-4 Acknowledgment is made to the The Jessica E.
    [Show full text]
  • Narrative Technique in Byron's Oriental Romances
    ^ fZt^ ^C^c^'i ^ NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE IN BYRON'S ORIENTAL ROMANCES by CHERYL RICHARDSON PETERSON, B.A. A THESIS IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Aonroved August, 1970 i^ 1^ TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. EXPERIMENTS IN VIEWPOINT 21 General Criticism 21 The Giaour 27 The Siege of Corinth 53 III. FOCUS ON CHARACTERIZATION 70 The Corsair 70 Lara 86 IV. VENTURES IN DRAMA 101 The Bride of Abydos 101 Parisina 115 V. CONCLUSION 129 BIBLIOGRAPHY 133 11 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In March, 1812, Cantos I and II of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage first appeared in print. The immediate and overwhelming popularity of this work thrust its author, George Gordon, Lord Byron, to a pinnacle of fame. For the next four years Byron's fortune continued at high tide, and, despite his fleeting moods and sarcastic wit, he became the pampered genius of London society. This period of Byron's life was one of fashionable dress balls and numerous romantic liaisons, culminating so disastrously in his marriage to Annabella Milbanke. Occupied as he was V7ith social duties and romantic attachments, Byron gave little thought to a systematic development of his poetic art. Nevertheless, between 1813 and 1816 a total of six rather substantial works by Byron were published and added significantly to the poet's popularity and reputation. The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, Lara, The Siege of Corinth, and Parisina were these six poems. Together they form a group frequently referred to as Byron's romances or Oriental tales.
    [Show full text]