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<strong>The</strong> second chapter considers Don Juan. Although this is the most famous <strong>of</strong> Byron’sworks, and the most popular with modern critics, it says comparatively little aboutreligion, utilising considerably less religious imagery than CHP. Nonetheless, it isstill Byron’s longest work, and so its length bears a number <strong>of</strong> representations <strong>of</strong>religion which need to be treated in some depth. Like CHP, it is meditative in form,and displays a particularly rhetorical turn which is significant. It also most clearlydemonstrates a late movement in the poet’s own religious position.Byron’s representations <strong>of</strong> Islam are the particular subject <strong>of</strong> the third chapter, on theEastern Tales. This sets it apart from all <strong>of</strong> the others, and the Tales’ representation <strong>of</strong>Islam is noticeably different from their representation <strong>of</strong> Christianity in a way whichhas implications for the views <strong>of</strong> Christianity elsewhere in the poet’s work. Thischapter also includes the consideration <strong>of</strong> the Byronic Hero character, and theinteractions <strong>of</strong> this figure with religion.Manfred receives its own short chapter, as the link between the Byronic Hero and themetaphysical dramas. It also deals with magic, an activity related to, but not exactlypart <strong>of</strong>, religion, and thus presents something <strong>of</strong> an exterior perspective on religiousissues.<strong>The</strong> final chapter focuses upon the biblical dramas, Cain and Heaven and Earth. Thischapter tackles ideas <strong>of</strong> orthodoxy much more directly than do the others, which tendto be more focussed, as their texts are, upon orthopraxy. This is the most radicalsection <strong>of</strong> the thesis, as its analysis demonstrates significant aspects <strong>of</strong> these twodramas which have received scant consideration in previous scholarship, and so itpresents a reading diametrically opposed to the most common views <strong>of</strong> these works.<strong>The</strong>se ten poems are the texts most central to representations <strong>of</strong> religion in Byron’swork, and the limited scope allowed for such a project regrettably meant that aconsiderable number <strong>of</strong> his works could only receive limited attention here. Mostnoticeably, this includes the whole set <strong>of</strong> historical dramas: Parisina, <strong>The</strong> Prisoner <strong>of</strong>Chillon (more precisely a dramatic monologue), Mazeppa, Marino Faliero,Sardanapalus, <strong>The</strong> Two Foscari, and <strong>The</strong> Island.20

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