Isn't it Byronic, don't you think...?

[felis_ultharus]

Today I have to skim the following books:

• Byron, Poetics, and History
  
• Byron and Romanticism
  
• Closet Performances: Political Exhibition and Prohibition in the Dramas of Byron and Shelley
  
• England in 1819
  
• Don Juan in Context
  
• Modern Critical Interpretations of Don Juan
  
• Wordsworth, A Sense of History

You've undoubtedly seen many of these books on the bestseller lists, or at checkout counters in supermarkets. Perhaps you've even pre-ordered one to beat the rush when they were released -- to avoid the millions of screaming fans.

I should also really finish Don Juan but hey, my teacher's a postmodernist. Why pay attention to the text?

Comments

[ubergreenkat.livejournal.com]

i love Love LOVE Byron jokes... it's been instilled in me since CEGEP when my prof (the least ominous-looking person ever) said in a very ominous voice "Byron, if he were around today would have a motorcyle - he was Mad Bad and Dangerous To Know"

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Heh. I didn't know that "mad, bad, dangerous to know" quote was applied to Byron until yesterday. Apparently it's from Caroline Lamb, wife of future Prime Minister Charles Lamb and one of Byron's mistresses.

I messed up my reading schedule just so I could write on Byron. His stuff is fantastic, and still reads really well, now -- though as the list above demonstrates, literary critic-vampires can suck the life out of any dead poet, no matter how exciting.

[ubergreenkat.livejournal.com]

it's ok, i took a class that made The Prince boring. poli sci has the same evil, demonic, ninja wizard powers as litcrit

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

"evil, demonic, ninja wizard powers"

That sounds way too cool for what these critics are doing to the text.