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Byron concealed himself in various literary disguises, a process he called “mobility.” In this study of influences on Byron’s verse and Byron’s European impact, I explore these borrowings and transformations as they manifested themselves in his reading. At issue is the very concept of romantic poetic voice. Framing himself in the tradition of the Irish yet cosmopolitan Thomas Moore, Byron adopted continental guises, imitating both Italian writers and political heroes, such as Dante, Machiavelli, and Tasso. In establishing an Italian identity, Byron relied upon the Italian writers he translated (Pulci, Dante), Thomas Moore’s “Fudge Family in Paris,” and Shelley’s “Julian and Maddalo,” as well as Goethe’s Faust. This Europeanization of Byron should not conceal the fact that Byron adopted poses from his predecessors, such as Walter Scott, in order to fashion himself as a Scottish poet who also happened to be English. Byron became the writers he read: Moore, Shelley, Wordsworth, Scott, Foscolo, Lady Morgan, and Madame de Staël. Those who imitated Byron, particularly Alexander Pushkin and Adam Mickiewicz, became the best interpreters of his literary example while transforming it, and explained what it meant to be a Harold in Muscovite Cloak, or a Polish Byron, to be both delimited and emancipated by Byron’s example.
“This book is a significant gift to Byron and Byron Studies: a reading of the estranged Byron drawn from tormented and estranged Europe. Expelled from imperial England, he was their stranger and they took him in.” — Jerome McGann, Emeritus Professor, the University of Virginia.
“European Byron reveals a capacious trans-European Byron, linking Byron to the cosmopolitan Shelley and Foscolo and, strikingly, tracing his impact on writers from Eastern Europe, particularly Pushkin and Mickiewicz. Grounded in textual details such as marginalia, the book explores Byron through field- defining approaches, including queer aesthetics, food studies, and eco-criticism.” — Jeffrey N. Cox, the University of Colorado Distinguished Professor, Arts and Sciences, and Professor of Distinction in English and Humanities, the University of Colorado Boulder.
“Jonathan Gross’s excellent close readings add substantially to our biographical, textual, and cultural understanding of Byron. They illuminate the depth of Byron’s influence on Eastern European writers and the influence on him of local writers Beckford, Walpole, and Moore, how prominently camp figures into his works, and how its resistance to translation make European Byron distinct from English Byron.” —Joseph Viscomi, James G. Kenan Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“The book shows an experienced Byron scholar dealing magisterially with his wide-ranging material. In his elegant style, Gross conjures up Byron as a practitioner of world literature and in his fresh approach he addresses not only experts and connoisseurs of Byron but also new readers who are stunned by Byron’s (and Gross’s) global view.” — Norbert Lennartz, Chair of English Literature at the University of Vechta (Germany) and author of the full-length study Tears, Liquids and Porous Bodies Across the Ages: Niobe’s Siblings (Bloomsbury, 2022).
“This is an important book on an important subject. It deals broadly with the reception of Byron by later European writers and does so with thoroughness, scholarship, and flair. It is marked both by its very wide range of reference and the intense personal, probing interest of the author in his subject.” — Bernard Beatty, Senior Fellow in English at Liverpool University and Associate Fellow in Divinity at St Andrews University.
“A learned and lively collection of deftly interconnected essays, The European Byron ranges broadly and digs deeply into European poetry and politics, centering on Byron but including his predecessors and descendants, most notably Mickiewicz and Pushkin, in terms of their shared mobility and cosmopolitanism. Jonathan Gross admirably suits style to content in this eclectic, erudite, and engaging appraisal of the literary past that demonstrates its enduring relevance to our own time.” —Peter Graham, Professor Emeritus of English, Virginia Tech.
“Just like the generous array of poets it analyzes, Gross's book is dazzling and multifaceted. Gross is among the world's preeminent Byron scholars, and he now shows us exactly why the political, sexual, and philosophical dimensions of Byron's "chameleon" poetry inspired writers across genres, national boundaries, and time.” — Mark E. Canuel, Professor, Department of English, Director, Graduate Studies, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, USA.
"A fascinating panorama of Romanticism ideas and themes, Romantic poets and their mutual inspirations. The focus of this kaleidoscope is Byron and his extraordinary influence on his contemporaries, including Adam Mickiewicz. Challenging research stereotypes, Prof. Gross explores the European identity, mobility, cosmopolitanism, and chameleonism of Byron and other Romantic poets".—Maria Kalinowska, University of Warsaw.
“The European Byron, embraces a rich diversity of literary texts and an enthralling range of concerns from climate, phrenology and freemasonry to diet and conversation. With deep scholarly acumen, Jonathan Gross gives us a Byron as ‘cosmopolitan, chameleon poet’ and yet also, in his noble, elf-sacrificing ‘beautiful death’, inspirer of Mickiewicz and Pushkin.” —James H. Murphy, Emeritus Professor of English, DePaul University, Chicago.
“Inductive and original, erudite and insightful, this study redraws our map of the international influences on and of Byron’s cosmopolitanism, ranging from Walpole and Beckford to Mickiewicz and Pushkin and further, to America, via Italy, France and Ireland. It is a major contribution to our knowledge and understanding of European Romanticism and Byron’s pivotal position within it.” —Dr Alan Rawes, Senior Lecturer in Romanticism, University of Manchester, USA.
“A powerful and intellectually engaging exploration of Byron’s mobility and chameleonic poetry. Jonathan Gross’s impressively erudite study alerts us to the dynamic interaction of British and European literary traditions in Byron’s oeuvre and exemplifies how our understanding of Byron is enriched when we read him in the context of other cosmopolitan chameleon poets like Adam Mickiewicz, Alexander Pushkin, and Ugo Foscolo. In covering a wide field of materials, authors, and concepts, and offering contrapuntal, insightful readings of Byron’s, Mickiewicz’s, and Pushkin’s selected texts, The European Byron revitalizes our idea of Byron: more international and trans-European and less national.” — Maria Schoina, Associate Professor, School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Jonathan Gross is Professor of English at DePaul University. He is the author of Byron: The Erotic Liberal, The Life of Anne Damer: Portrait of a Regency Artist, and editor of Byron’s “Corbeau Blanc”: The Life and Letters of Lady Melbourne.
Figures; Frequently Cited Works; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Camp Strategies in Walpole, Beckford, Byron, and Damer: The Example of Manfred; Part I: Imitation, Madness, Improvisation; One; Part II: Orphic Music and Moral Self-Discipline; “Fare thee Well!”: Polish and Russian RESPONSES TO BYRONISM; Conclusion: Freemasonry in Manfred—Byron, Mickiewicz, and Pushkin; Bibliography; Index