Byron's War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Reprint, 10/9/2014
EAN 9781107470385, ISBN10: 1107470382
Paperback, 356 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
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 Byron's War draws extensively on Greek historical sources and other unpublished documents to tell an individual story that also offers a new understanding of the significance that Greece had for Byron, and of Byron's contribution to the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.
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.