Perhaps no great poet, in any language, has suffered more than Byron from being merely read about rather than actually read. As Bernard Beatty remarks in his introduction to this important collection of essays, the popular conception of 'Byron' still often approximates to 'Rupert Everett with a limp'. Reading Byron is the product and summation of nearly sixty years devoted to studying and teaching his poetry. It argues that, far from being 'mad, bad and dangerous to know', Byron is serious, ethically orientated and rewarding to read. The book is in three parts: Poems - Life - Politics. Five new essays have been written especially for the first and largest section, which provides fresh perspectives on Byron's major works. The volume continues with three of Beatty's lively lectures on unappreciated aspects of Byron the man, and three pithy essays on Byron as a complex, if not systematic, political thinker. While Beatty does not question the pre-eminent status of the 'bright' Don Juan, devoting a chapter to an unconventional reading of its final cantos, he argues powerfully that nineteenth-century readers, who responded on an unprecedented scale to the forceful poetic structures of the 'dark' Byron in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Tales, Manfred, and Cain, were right to do so. Introduced by Jerome McGann (editor of the great Clarendon edition of the poet's works) and concluded in dialogue with Gavin Hopps (co-editor of the forthcoming Longman edition), Reading Byron is itself essential reading for any student or lover of Romantic poetry.

First published in 1985. What sort of poem is Don Juan, and how does it maintain its momentum through its long and often struggling narrative? These are the questions that Bernard Beatty proposes in this subtle and elegant discussion of Byron's masterwork. The legend of Don Juan was entrenched in European literature and other arts long before it came under Byron's hands, yet Byron's treatment of the story is often almost unrecognisably far from its forebears. Beatty indicates how deeply Byron has assimilated his predecessors in order to produce his own work. The sustained argument of this book raises questions of interest not only to students of Byron but of comedy in general, as well as of the place of religious motifs in apparently secularised modes.

First published in 1985. What sort of poem is Don Juan, and how does it maintain its momentum through its long and often struggling narrative? These are the questions that Bernard Beatty proposes in this subtle and elegant discussion of Byron's masterwork. The legend of Don Juan was entrenched in European literature and other arts long before it came under Byron's hands, yet Byron's treatment of the story is often almost unrecognisably far from its forebears. Beatty indicates how deeply Byron has assimilated his predecessors in order to produce his own work. The sustained argument of this book raises questions of interest not only to students of Byron but of comedy in general, as well as of the place of religious motifs in apparently secularised modes.

When the Peninsular War ended in 1814, the prolonged struggle had all but exhausted both British government finances and the British public's enthusiasm for war. The authoritarian rule of Ferdinand VII aroused long-standing British suspicions of Spanish ways, which emerged in British literary works that depicted a retrograde, fanatical Spain. The tumultuous years following Ferdinand's reign also led to divisions among the European powers, some favouring the restoration of Ferdinand, with the British government and liberal forces vehemently opposed. This diverse volume focuses on British reactions to, and representations of, Spanish affairs during this lively period (1814-1823). It demonstrates both Spain's visibility in Regency Britain and the consequent inspiration and dialectical activity of British politicians, artists and intellectuals. It does so through a combination of literary, social, historical and cultural perspectives that bring both fresh light to this formative period of nineteenth-century British attitudes to Spain and a wealth of new scholarly material.