He’s dark, he’s dramatic, he’s sexy, mad, bad, and dangerous to know: he’s Byron. A literary celeb whose famous personality outreaches the fame of his poetry. It is hard to think sometimes how young I truly am and, with that, how early in my days of reading I am. My knowledge of the Romantic poets as a whole is little and less beyond an Ozymandias or Kubla Khan and this has been the first Byronic work I have read.

     Manfred is a closet drama, much in the style of Goethe’s Faust (and Goethe was another literary celebrity of the era). What I found most interesting, however, was how perfectly timed it was to read Manfred right after both finishing Wuthering Heights and Moby-Dick. With a much better appreciation for what the “Byronic hero” is, Heathcliff and Ahab seem much more clear in their literary genealogy as stemming from Manfred’s roots. Especially Heathcliff. From having a forbidden love, to being a dark, brooding, poetic antihero, to not being worthy of Heaven or Hell, but finding Earth to be his own, perfect Hell, Manfred and Heathcliff are both of the same ilk. 

     Something that really interested and surprised me was Byron’s poetic control throughout the poem. Byron, always famed for his passion, his brooding, and his emotion, asserts a masterful control and finesse to his lexis, which makes those dark feelings come out all the better. Much like Sappho or Tennyson’s elegiacs, I always appreciate when poets can control their emotions to make them all the more deeply moving, as opposed to slam poetry, which often (but not always!) falls flat for me, melting into a kind of sing-songy, muddy outflow of words. 

     I am glad to have started my first foray into Romanticism and for improving my poetic-analysis abilities through Manfred. It was a well-timed read, very dramatic, very technically impressive, and an all-around great book!