Fantasy, Forgery, and the Byron Legend
eBook - PDF

Fantasy, Forgery, and the Byron Legend

  1. 224 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Fantasy, Forgery, and the Byron Legend

About this book

Byron was—to echo Wordsworth—half-perceived and half-created. He would have affirmed Jean Baudrillard's observation that "to seduce is to die to reality and reconstitute oneself as illusion." But among the readers he seduced, in person and in poetry, were women possessed of vivid imaginations who collaborated with him in fashioning his legend. Accused of "treating women harshly," Byron acknowledged: "It may be so—but I have been their martyr. My whole life has been sacrificed to them and by them." Those whom he spell bound often returned the favor in their own writings tried to remake his public image to reflect their own.

Through writings both well known and generally unknown, James Soderholm examines the poet's relationship with five women: Elizabeth Pigot, Caroline Lamb, Annabella Milbanke, Teresa Guiccioli, and Marguerite Blessington. These women participated in Byron's life and literary career and the manipulation of images that is the Byron legend.

Soderholm argues against the sentimental depictions of biographers who would preserve Byron's romantic aura by diminishing the contributions of these women to his social, sexual, and literary identity. By restoring the contexts in which literary works charm or bedevil particular readers, the author shows the consequences of Byron's poetic seductions during and after his life.

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Yes, you can access Fantasy, Forgery, and the Byron Legend by James Soderholm in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literatur & Englische Literaturkritik. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half-title
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. List of Illustrations
  8. Acknowledgments
  9. A Note on Citations
  10. Introduction: The Grammar of Glamour
  11. 1 Trial Fantasies: Byron and Elizabeth Pigot
  12. 2 Byron's Miniature Writ Large: Lady Caroline Lamb
  13. 3 The Divining of Byron: Annabella Milbanke
  14. 4 Unwriting His Body: Teresa Guiccioli's Transubstantiation of Byron
  15. 5 The Art of Conversation: Lady Marguerite Blessington
  16. Appendix A: Transcription of French Portions from a Seance with Byron
  17. Appendix B: The Byron Legend in an Age of Artificial Intelligence
  18. Notes
  19. Selected Bibliography
  20. Index