Byron's Poetic Experimentation: Childe Harold, the Tales and the Quest for Comedy / Edition 1

by Alan Rawes

Overview

In this study, the author examines the evolution of Byron's poetry from Childe Harold I and II through to the composition of Beppo. Beginning with a close reading of the sustained poetic experimentation that constitutes Childe Harold I and II, he charts the progress of that experimentation in the Tales where Byron's poetry gets entrenched in a tragic idiom. The author then describes Byron's prolonged struggle to break clear of the imaginative limitations imposed by that tragic idiom and to break into a sustainable comic mode: a struggle that drives Childe Harold III, The Prisoner of Chillon, and The Dream only to culminate in success in Childe Harold IV. It is here, as Rawes demonstrates, that the path forward into the comic mode of Beppo and Don Juan is discovered. Byron's Poetic Experimentation also offers a substantial reconsideration of Byron's shifting attitude towards Wordsworthian idealism and a detailed analysis of the structured eclecticism of Manfred.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780754601715
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/08/2000
Series:	The Nineteenth Century Series
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr Alan Rawes is Senior Lecturer in Romanticism at The University of Manchester.

Table of Contents

Contents: Introduction; ’Mixed in one mighty scene with varied beauty glow’; ’The frame of things disjoint’; ’A narrow escape into faith’; ’Tears and tortures, and the touch of joy’; ’To increase our power increasing thine’; A ’more beloved existence’; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

The Romantic poet's experimentation, says Rawes (English, U. of Strathclyde) began with and progressed to the where it became entrenched in a tragic idiom. Then he sees a prolonged struggle to escape the creative limitations imposed by that idiom and break into a sustainable comic mode through several poems, and victory at last in . He describes the path forward then to and . Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

’...a thoughtful and intelligent study.’ The Byron Journal '... the theme of Byron's oedipal struggle with and transcendence of Wordsworth's influence is (...) a fascinating and worthwhile lens with which to scrutinize the poet's early career. Throughout the readings of individual poems are detailed and thought-provoking, and make a case for reassessing the traditional view of Byron's verse as always in contrast with canonical British Romanticism.' Notes and Queries '... a sharp and intelligent study of Byron's experimentation which begins by reminding the reader, correctly, that Byron's versatility makes him a far more ambitious poet then most, and, further, that he is a more impressive poet than is commonly acknowledged.' The Year's Work in English Studies

From the Publisher