The Cambridge Companion to Byron

Byron’s life and work have fascinated readers around the world for two hundred years, but it is the complex interaction between his art and his politics, beliefs and sexuality that has attracted so many modern critics and students. In three sections devoted to the historical, textual and literary contexts of Byron’s life and times, these specially commissioned essays by a range of eminent Byron scholars provide a compelling picture of the diversity of Byron’s writings. The essays cover topics such as Byron’s interest in the East, his relationship to the publishing world, his attitudes to gender, his use of Shakespeare and eighteenth-century literature, and his acute fit in a post-modernist world. This Companion provides an invaluable resource for students and scholars, including a chronology and a guide to further reading.

• The most comprehensive volume on the topic, well supported by a chronology and guides to further reading • Accessibly written and comprehensive collection for classroom use • Covers a broad range of topics, reflecting the expansiveness of Byron’s work

Chronology; Introduction Drummond Bone; Part I. Historical Contexts: 1. Byron’s life and his biographers Paul Douglass; 2. Byron and the business of publishing Peter W. Graham; 3. Byron’s politics Malcolm Kelsall; 4. Byron: gender and sexuality Andrew Elfenbein; Part II. Texts: 5. Heroism and history: Childe Harold I & II and the Tales Philip W. Martin; 6. Byron and the eastern Mediterranean: Childe Harold II and the ‘Polemic of Ottoman Greece’ Nigel Leask; 7. Childe Harold III and Manfred Alan Rawes; 8. Byron and the theatre Alan Richardson; 9. Childe Harold IV, Don Juan and Beppo Drummond Bone; 10. The Vision of Judgment and the Visions of ‘Author’ Susan Wolfson; 11. Byron’s Prose Andrew Nicholson; Part III. Literary Contexts: 12. Byron’s lyric poetry Jerome McGann; 13. Byron and Shakespeare Anne Barton; 14. Byron, postmodernism and intertextuality Jane Stabler; 15. Byron’s European reception Peter Cochran; 16. Byron and the eighteeth century Bernard Beatty.

\'… this Companion serves its manifold purpose of clarifying difficult points about Byron and his work at the same time as it shows their complexity, and it invites the reader to come or to come back to them. The variety of angles and the crisscrossing of approaches provide an enriched perspective on one of the most significant poets of the Romantic era.\' Cercles

\'One feels enthusiasm as well as information and interpretation in the Companion. Admirers of Byron\'s verse as well as newcomers will find that it repays close reading and reference.\' Emerald