Lord Byron and Scandalous Celebrity: 110 (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism, Series Number 110)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 12/29/2014
EAN 9781107082595, ISBN10: 1107082595
Hardcover, 346 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
The Regency period in general, and the aristocrat-poet Lord Byron in particular, were notorious for scandal, but the historical circumstances of this phenomenon have yet to be properly analysed. Lord Byron and Scandalous Celebrity explores Byron's celebrity persona in the literary, social, political and historical contexts of Regency Britain and post-Napoleonic Europe that produced it. Clara Tuite argues that the Byronic enigma that so compelled contemporary audiences - and provoked such controversy with its spectacular Romantic Satanism - can be understood by means of 'scandalous celebrity', a new form of ambivalent fame that mediates between notoriety and traditional forms of heroic renown. Examining Byron alongside contemporary figures including Caroline Lamb, Stendhal, Napoleon Bonaparte and Lord Castlereagh, Tuite illuminates the central role played by Byron in the literary, political and sexual scandals that mark the Regency as a vital period of social transition and emergent celebrity culture.
Prologue
proverbially notorious
Introduction
the meteor's milieu
Part I. Worldlings
1. Caroline Lamb, more like a beast
2. Stendhal, on his knees
3. Napoleon, that fallen star
4. Bloody Castlereagh
Part II. Writings
5. Childe Harold IV and the pageant of his bleeding heart
6. Don Juan
the life and work of infamous poems
Part III. After-Warriors
7. Byron's Head and the pirate sphere
Epilogue
you may be devil
Bibliography.