The Oxford Handbook of Lord Byron

The Oxford Handbook of Lord Byron offers the latest in critical thinking about the poet that defined the Romantic era in English Literature. The volume presents forty-five groundbreaking essays that enable readers to assess Lord Byron’s central position in Romantic traditions and his profound and far-reaching influence on British, European, and world culture. The essays in the volume are organized into five sections – ‘Works’, ‘Biographical Contexts’, ‘Literary and Cultural Contexts’, ‘Afterlives’, and ‘Reading Byron Now’ – that guide readers through the most important issues and frameworks for interpreting Byron. ‘Works’ presents original readings of Byron’s key works and many of his lesser-known ones, giving space for extensive studies of his great epic, Don Juan, and the poem that brought him fame, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. ‘Biographical Contexts’ invites readers to consider Byron’s life through key themes and patterns. ‘Literary and Cultural Contexts’ sets out the most important intellectual traditions from which Byron’s work emerged and in which it developed. ‘Afterlives’ shows readers the extent of Byron’s influence on literature, art, music, and politics in Europe and beyond. ‘Reading Byron Now’ sets out the latest critical agendas that are shaping Byron Studies today. The handbook tackles all of the big themes associated with Byron including the Byronic Hero, poetics, politics, history, cosmopolitanism, liberalism, sexuality, mobility, class, scepticism, the Gothic, celebrity culture, and Byronism. For new readers of Byron, the volume provides an excellent grounding in his life and work, and for specialists it delivers exciting new approaches to an icon of Romantic literature.