Introduction

20
Vanessa Mangione
The longing for something that cannot be achieved resembles Lacan’s definition
of “desire”:
It is in the nature of desire to be radically torn. The very image of man
brings in here a mediation which is always imaginary, always problematic,
and which is therefore never completely fulfilled. It is maintained by a succession
of momentary experiences, and this experience either alienates man
from himself, or else ends in destruction, a negation of the object. (166)
Byron mainly places his protagonists in a situation where there is no longer hope,
as the “other self”, their true love, has already been lost. One of the first authors
who actually placed the hero within reach of redemptive love is Charlotte Brontë,
whose Mr Rochester could be saved by Jane Eyre.
Nevertheless, two questions come to mind: Why do critics believe that the Byronic
hero is relegated to female-coded sub-genres only? Plus, why do they claim
that this persona only appeals to female readers? As early as 1789, Joanna Baillie
argues in the “Introductionary Discourse” to her work Series of Plays on the Passions
that as soon as the reader encounters someone who holds passionate feelings
within him but tries to conceal them, a strong wish to reveal them overcomes us:
Let us understand, from observation or report, that any person harbours in
his breast, concealed from the world’s eye, some powerful rankling passion
of what kind soever it may be, we will observe every word, every motion,
every look, even the distant gait of such a man, with a constancy and attention
bestowed upon no other. Nay, should we meet him unexpectedly on
our way, a feeling will pass over our minds as though we found ourselves in
the neighbourhood of some secret and fearful thing. (11)
Baillie does not differentiate between male and female reactions to these passions.
Men as well as women are equally drawn to these secret feelings; they are both
stimulated by them and an urge to discover them is awakened. Furthermore, the
man who carries these strong passions suddenly holds an immense appeal for the
people around him. Baillie continues:
If invisible, would we not follow him to his lonely haunts, into the midnight
silence of his chamber? There is, perhaps, no employment which the human
mind will with so much avidity pursue, as the discovery of concealed
passion. (11)
Pinch comments on this passage “The very secretness of his passion not only
incites people to discover it; it also makes him a strangely affecting being whose
presence sends feelings to haunt us” (3).
Overall, neither Baillie nor Pinch differentiate between the wishes of men and
women to discover the mystery behind those feelings. This leads to the question:
Why has the need to discover the source of the guilt-ridden feelings of the By-