Introduction

18
Vanessa Mangione
temporary mania for Byron and everything Byronic. His next poem The Corsair,
which was published in 1814, sold 10,000 copies on its day of publication (Wilson
4). The poet Samuel Rogers commented that Byron’s youth and rank combined
with his “romantic wanderings in Greece” were the reasons why the world was
“stark mad about Childe Harold” and its writer, for the identification of Byron with
his aristocratic and world-weary hero was made straightaway (229). Nevertheless,
the quality of the poetry is often left out when Byron and his success are discussed;
contemporaries concentrated more on imitating his expression and style
than on his poetic value. This attitude is still pursued even today; the Byronic hero
as a concept and the Byronic Romantic are still being discussed, but his poetry is
almost entirely left out of academic discussions. Thus, Wilson argues, the potency
of his name is rather connected to a certain style and attitude than to the actual
historic figure of Lord Byron (Introduction 9). In addition, Wilson reminds us that
opposing concepts of the Byronic and Byron were and still are circulating:
Byronism has represented at the same time both solitary elegance and gross
libertinism, physical indulgence and emaciation; the sharp dandy as well as
the dishevelled wanderer are said to look “Byronic”, and Byron was being
erased officially at the same time as he was being recreated in the subculture
of Byromania. (9)
Consequently, Byron became one with his protagonists and at the same time a
figure of identification and desire in the public imagination; Byron became a star.
The line between life and performance vanished, and they became the same thing.
He even created a specific way to look for his self-portrayal as a Byronic hero 9,
which numerous people tried to copy. Elfenbein adds that through his dominant
Byronic character, Byron not only influenced and changed literary genres but also
fashion, social manners, erotic experience, and gender roles of his time (8). He
was a cultural phenomenon, one that had never existed before. He was portrayed
and portrayed himself as Lord Byron as well as his protagonists, from the suffering
Childe Harold to the satirical Don Juan. He played with the accusations of
incestuous love for his half-sister Augusta Leigh and worked it into his poem
Manfred, which only led to further speculation. Thus, as there was no distinction
made between Byron and the Byronic hero, it is difficult to draw a line as to where
the creator ends, and the creation begins.
Nowadays, Byronism is considered to be the first modern-style celebrity phenomenon.
Nevertheless, the interest in the Byronic hero seems to have subsided
in the 1960s. While during the first half of the twentieth century he was often
referred to, and studies of the Byronic hero had appeared regularly, 10 Thorslev
9 He would bend his head a bit and look out of the corners of his eyes to appear brooding and
mysterious.
10 For discussions of the Byronic hero before the 1960s see among others: Mario Praz, The Hero in
Eclipse in Victorian Fiction, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959); Mario Praz, The Romantic Ag-