What accounts for the extremely high rank that was accorded by the 'reading public' (outside university departments of English) to Byron in much of Continental Europe for nearly 150 years after his death?

lanfranco

Well, let's see. There was his excitingly notorious love life; his death in the Greek cause against the Turks (of a fever, not a battle wound, but let's not quibble); his poetic tales of romantic and/or erotic adventure, such as "Childe Harold" and "Don Juan," which the public tended to associate with their author; his satirical wit; and his readability, which may have been the major factor. Also, his reputation as a very good-looking guy, fueled by nice portraits such as Richard Westall's. Did anyone ever do an actual poll on this? [Apr 24 05 1:41 PM] lanfranco writes: P.S. I'm guessing the Greek thing. Apr 24 05, 11:43 AM

bloomsby

Many thanks, Lanfranco. I suspected it was to a large extent political. :) It always struck me as one of those cases where the Continental "canon" was - and remained - quite spectactularly at odds with that in the English-speaking countries. Apr 24 05, 2:26 PM