Description
Roderick Beaton re-examines Lord Byron's life and writing through the long trajectory of his relationship with Greece. Beginning with the poet's youthful travels in 1809–1811, Beaton traces his years of fame in London and self-imposed exile in Italy, that culminated in the decision to devote himself to the cause of Greek independence. Then comes Byron's dramatic self-transformation, while in Cephalonia, from Romantic rebel to 'new statesman', subordinating himself for the first time to a defined, political cause, in order to begin laying the foundations, during his 'hundred days' at Missolonghi, for a new kind of polity in Europe – that of the nation-state as we know it today. Byron's War draws extensively on Greek historical sources and other unpublished documents to tell an individual story that also offers a new understanding of the significance that Greece had for Byron, and of Byron's contribution to the origin of the present-day Greek state.
Table of Contents
Prologue; Part I. The Rebel Imagination (1809–1816): 1. Land of lost gods …; 2. … and modern monsters; Part II. The Road to Revolution (1816–1823): 3. Reluctant Radical; 4. 'Prophet of a noble contest'; 5. Death by water, transfiguration by fire; 6. The deformed transformed; Part III. Greece: 'Tis the Cause Makes All' (July–December 1823): 7. Preparations for battle; 8. Wavering; 9. The new statesman; Part IV. Missolonghi: The Hundred Days (January–April 1824): 10. 'Political economy'; 11. Confronting the warlords; 12. Pyrrhic victory; Epilogue; Notes; Bibliography; Index.
