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Narrative Technique in Byron's Oriental Romances

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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. The reputation of these tales during the poet's lifetime depended to a great extent upon the popular literary tastes of the age and upon the novelty of Byron's personality. Martha Conant and Marie E. deMeester have published separate studies outlining the sources and causes of eighteenth and nineteenth century interest in Oriental subjects. While the general reading public was probably unconscious of a special interest in Eastern lore, its rapid consump­ tion of exotic reading material did not escape contemporary literary 2 analysis. But Byron, although knowledgeable of these trends, exploited Eastern topics more from personal absorption rather than literary convention. Childe Harold, based upon Byron's own Mediter­ ranean travels from 1809-1811, and The Giaour, centered upon an adventure of Byron's in Greece, were products of reality as well as imagination. Considering Byron's reputation at the time prior to the publication of Childe Harold, however, it would be difficult to sepa­ rate the sudden popularity of these works from the vogue surrounding the mysterious East. In addition to their treatment of intriguing subject matter, the Oriental tales also found public acceptance because of their basic form. Although romantic narrative verse received little attention in the eighteenth century, it experienced a revival in the nineteenth. Stimulated by the bold emotions of the French Revolution and the exciting deeds of Napoleon Bonaparte, the public of Byron's time "Slartha Conant, The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Macmillan, 1908) and Marie E. deMeester, Oriental Influences in the English Literature of the Early Nineteenth Century, Anglistische Forschungen, Vol. XLVI (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1915). 2 In a letter to Thomas Moore, August 28, 1813, Byron wrote: "Stick to the East;—the oracle, Stael, told me it was the only poetical policy. The North, South, and West, have all been exhausted; but from the East, we have nothing but Southey's unsaleables." The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, edited by Rowland E. Pro- thero, II (New York: Octagon Books, Inc., 1966), p. 255. (Hereinafter referred to as Letters and Journals.) responded with eager imagination to adventure stories. Medieval romances of knightly valor kindled a new spark of enthusiasm. Ballads, with their quaintness of language, simplicity of form, and sometimes exotic use of superstition and strange custom, intrigued readers. The prose narrative of the novel, emerging from its birth pangs, was attracting more attention. Set within this literary atmosphere and within the general tradition of the romance narrative, Byron's stories could not fail to succeed. That they succeeded so rapidly is probably also a direct .result of the interest surrounding his immediate prede­ cessor and future competitor. Sir Walter Scott, Although Byron's tales have an undeniable originality, they have many features in common with Scott's historical narratives and the conventions of certain gothic 3 novels by Mrs. Anne Radcliffe. These similarities allowed Byron to profit from an esteem already granted to fanciful tales. Byron's Oriental romances soon exceeded Scott's narratives in popularity. Clement T. Goode remarks upon the greater intensity and facility of Byron's verse as well as the simplicity and constant 4 motion of the plots as reasons for Byron's greater artistry. He also mentions that Byron was distinguished from other writers for concen­ trating each of his romances on one dark hero whose passions are subjective and intense. It was probably this "dark hero" and his 3 For a full discussion of Byron's debt to medieval romance, gothic novel, and Scott see Clement T. Goode, "Byron's Early Romances: A Study" (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1959), chapter I. 4 Goode, p. 148. ^Ibid, psychological conflicts which carried the poet to his highest popular­ ity with nineteenth century readers. Brooding and solitary, obscure in background and frustrated in love, the Byronic hero of these early narratives was quickly identified with the enigmatic personality of the poet himself. Byron's protests to the contrary only increased his readers' speculation and interest. Leslie Marchand relates an incident surrounding one of Byron's adoring female admirers whom the poet finally agreed to meet, although he was thereafter plagued by her numerous letters. Other devotees were less fortunate but equally adamant. While this romantic fascination with Byron and his myster­ ious heroes soon waned, the close association of the poet with his writings has played an important role in all criticism up to the present day. Twentieth century viewpoints of the Oriental romances have usually reflected two basic modes of Byron criticism. W. Paul Elledge states that one school of thought regards the poetry as ". .a melo- dramatized diary brimful of the author's loneliness, despair, guilt, and eloquent theatricality." Supporting this opinion are, of course, many of Byron's o\m. words which give the impression that his poetic composition was merely a leisure occupation bereft of conscious inten­ tion. Indeed, the very brief time span required to compose each of Leslie A. Marchand, Byron: A Biography, I (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957), pp. 453-454. W. Paul Elledge, Byron and the Dynamics of Metaphor (Nash­ ville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1968), p. 3. the tales seems to make them especially prone to this type of inter­ pretation. Edward Vulliamy contends, however, that to rely too much on Byron's comments is to be taken in by a pose necessitated by the social attitudes of the time. Writing was not a proper occupation for a gentleman, Vulliamy adds: "If a nobleman wrote poetry it was necessary either for him to apologize or else to treat his work as the pastime of idle hours, a pastime involving no trouble and entirely o dissociated from anything so vulgar as literary ambition." While almost all critics concede that biographical information cannot be separated entirely from Byron's works, Paul West appears to be the most avid spokesman for critics who consider the connection of Byron's life and works of primary importance. He observes: "It is Byron and Byron's idea of himself which hold his work together, just as that idea enthralled Europe and summed up under the heading of 9 Byronism a variety of European obsessions." In remarking upon the "difficulty" of responding to Byron, he says: "We respond to his temperament: not to his philosophy, for he has none; nor to his plots, which are vapid; nor to his wisdom, which is facetious; nor to his knowledge, which is disorganized." Such sentiments, although they point up areas where Byron is considered weak, seem too extreme in o Calwyn Edward Vulliamy, Byron: With _a View of the Kingdom of Cant and £ Dissection of the Byronic Hero (London: Michael Joseph, 1948), p. 119. (Hereinafter referred to as Byron.) 9 Paul West, ed., Byron: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 2. Ibid., p. 3. these particular statements to be valid. One wonders at the continued popularity of Byron's poetry if it presents nothing more substantial than a picture of an unusual personality. Most critics of recent years have relegated the poet's per­ sonal history to the background of their interpretations and have begun to undertake what Elledge calls ". .a primarily aesthetic 11 investigation of the poetry." Consequently, there is now a plethora of interesting and diversive ideas concerning the artistic motives and methods observable in the poetry itself. Byron, whose work and person suffered greatly from the moralizing of the Victorian era, has regained his claim to artistic integrity in the hands of tv/entieth century 12 scholars. This paper will be devoted primarily to this aesthetic type of critical analysis, focusing upon the narrative structure of six poems: The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, Lara, The Siege of Corinth, and Parisina. Biographical material will not be overlooked, however, when it offers an additional perspective into textual elucidation. The purpose of this paper is to explore and evaluate the narrative technique used by Byron in his Oriental romances.
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