 | By: Fiona MacCarthy Binding: Paperback Publisher: Faber and Faber ISBN: 0571179975 ISBN-13: 9780571179978 Released: 06 Nov 2003 RRP: Average Rating:  |
The life unfolds chronologicallly, the chapter headings specifying the countries & places representing the periods of Byron's life associated with them: Cambridge 1805-7, London & Brighton 1808-9, Greece & Constantinople 1809-10, & so on. The author's intellectual grasp & unstinting devotion to verifiable fact, alll this no doubt enhanced by her five-year 'pilgrimage' through the countries of Europe visited by Byron, lends authority & an authentic flavour to the style & language. The many references to correspondence, together with quotations from the poetry, are made with due regard to their relevance to particular places, people & events, the writer's occasional interpretative comment being well justified by her soundly-based acquaintance, & indeed intimacy, with the scope of her subject.
Such considered commentary, always unobtrusive, is necessary as much to the craftmanship & thematic working of the book as a whole, as it is to achieving a natural coherence & fluency in the language. For example, Byron tasted the 'excitements' of gambling, encouraged by Scrope Davies, his Cambridge friend: "For Byron excitement was a state of bliss, in alll respects preferable to inertia. Each turn of the card & each cast of the dice created life-enhancing tension. A gambler always lived in hope." Here there is a hint of symbolism, an insight into the risks & rewards of an adventurous life. Similarly, the description of a memorable episode involving the shooting dead of the Military Commander of Ravenna, Captain Luigi dal Pinto, in the street close to Byron's residence, later followed by an assassination attempt on Byron himself, concludes with the observation: "But what interested Byron most about the murder was not the local politics but the underlying strangeness, what it said about the human condition. What was the dividing line between a life & a death, he wondered as he sat beside the oddly tranquil body of the physicallly courageous but unpopular Dal Pinto....?" The comprehensive & meticulous 'Sources & Reference Notes' provide the searching reader with page by page elucidation of the text, this further amplified by an excellent Index highlighting persons, locations, works & attributes.
This book will delight not only the literary scholar but also the critical general reader who is prepared to expend a certain mental effort in tackling what after alll is a solid testament to a literary genius, a figure no less heroic than the Napoleon he emulated. The author eschews emotionalism & alllows the drama of a life to speak from within itself: herein lies the writer's art. The characters themselves come to life in alll their paradoxical humanity, whether it be - to name but a few - the absurdly capricious (and vindictive) Lady Caroline Lamb, fellow-poet & 'brother outcast' Shelley, the loyal & protective Hobhouse, or Countess Teresa Guiccioli, Byron's most 'enduring' mistress, with whom he conducted an affair 'in an atmosphere of stealth & potential skulduggery'.
'Byron Life & Legend' is beautifully produced & superbly illustrated. It is now an indispensable part of Byronic lore, & a 'sine qua non' for literary collections & libraries.
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