Book contents
- Byron in Context
- Byron in Context
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Chronology
- Abbreviations and Note on the Text
- Introduction
- Part I Life and Works
- Part II Political, Social and Intellectual Transformations
- Part III Literary Cultures
- Part IV Reception and Afterlives
- Chapter 31 Contemporary Critical Reception to 1824
- Chapter 32 Byron, Radicals and Reformers
- Chapter 33 European Reception
- Chapter 34 Recollections, Conversations and Biographies
- Chapter 35 Posthumous Reception and Reinvention to 1900
- Chapter 36 Popular Culture
- Chapter 37 Byron Now
- Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 33 - European Reception
from Part IV - Reception and Afterlives
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 October 2019
- Byron in Context
- Byron in Context
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Chronology
- Abbreviations and Note on the Text
- Introduction
- Part I Life and Works
- Part II Political, Social and Intellectual Transformations
- Part III Literary Cultures
- Part IV Reception and Afterlives
- Chapter 31 Contemporary Critical Reception to 1824
- Chapter 32 Byron, Radicals and Reformers
- Chapter 33 European Reception
- Chapter 34 Recollections, Conversations and Biographies
- Chapter 35 Posthumous Reception and Reinvention to 1900
- Chapter 36 Popular Culture
- Chapter 37 Byron Now
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
In a chapter devoted to Byron in A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell remarked that Byron’s posthumous reputation was more influential on the Continent than in England, and that it was there that his “spiritual progeny” was to be sought. His death at Mesologgi while supporting the Greek cause against the Ottoman oppressors contributed to the myth of Byron the Romantic poet and aristocratic rebel who gave his life to the cause of freedom against oppression; Russell concludes that as a myth Byron’s importance on the Continent was “enormous.” To adapt Mircea Eliades’ theory of archetypes, Byron could have been the exemplar of the poet as “historical personage” whose life history was metamorphosed by nineteenth-century criticism into an “archetype” of mythical status.
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- Byron in Context , pp. 273 - 280Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019