Lord Byron's strength
Subtitle: romantic writing and commercial society
By: Jerome Christensen.
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 1993
Place of publication: Baltimore
Language: eng
Number of pages: 426
Subjects: Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824 -- Criticism and interpretation.; Literature and society -- England -- History -- 19th century.; Authors and readers -- England -- History -- 19th century.; Aristocracy (Social class) in literature.; Authority in literature.; Romanticism -- England.
Description: According to Jerome Christensen, literary histories of British Romanticism have dealt inadequately with Byron's "lordship"--His singularity as a phenomenal literary success and as the last and greatest aristocratic poet in the language. At first, Byron does not want a poetic career. Then, entrapped by his extraordinary success, he gets one. And once Byron has a career, he ruins it--not by his unsavory sexual practices and political grandstanding, but by publishing his greatest poem. The first extended study of the career and persona of the most celebrated poet of the nineteenth century, Lord Byron's Strength draws on contemporary literary, political, and social theory not only to revise our understanding of Byron but also to reexamine the romanticism of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Scott, Hazlitt, and Shelley.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 365-417) and index.