Lord Byron and Scandalous Celebrity

This book examines the relationship between Lord Byron's life and work, and the Regency culture of scandal.

Clara Tuite (Author)

9781107082595, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 December 2014

346 pages, 14 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.63 kg

'Tuite traces the human relationships involved in the manufacture of a popular (or unpopular) idol […] bringing her expertise as a Jane Austen scholar into sophisticated decodings of social space.' Jane Stabler, Times Higher Education Supplement

The Regency period in general, and the aristocrat-poet Lord Byron in particular, were notorious for scandal, but the historical circumstances of this phenomenon have yet to be properly analysed. Lord Byron and Scandalous Celebrity explores Byron's celebrity persona in the literary, social, political and historical contexts of Regency Britain and post-Napoleonic Europe that produced it. Clara Tuite argues that the Byronic enigma that so compelled contemporary audiences - and provoked such controversy with its spectacular Romantic Satanism - can be understood by means of 'scandalous celebrity', a new form of ambivalent fame that mediates between notoriety and traditional forms of heroic renown. Examining Byron alongside contemporary figures including Caroline Lamb, Stendhal, Napoleon Bonaparte and Lord Castlereagh, Tuite illuminates the central role played by Byron in the literary, political and sexual scandals that mark the Regency as a vital period of social transition and emergent celebrity culture.

Prologue: proverbially notorious
Introduction: the meteor's milieu
Part I. Worldlings: 1. Caroline Lamb, more like a beast
2. Stendhal, on his knees
3. Napoleon, that fallen star
4. Bloody Castlereagh
Part II. Writings: 5. Childe Harold IV and the pageant of his bleeding heart
6. Don Juan: the life and work of infamous poems
Part III. After-Warriors: 7. Byron's Head and the pirate sphere
Epilogue: you may be devil
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]