Description
Book SynopsisByron: The Erotic Liberal explores the relationship between Byron's erotic life and his political commitments, placing his poetry in the context of the work of other aristocratic liberals such as Madame de Stael.
Trade ReviewByron's politics are so complicated that few have even attempted to write book-length studies about them, and Gross should be commended for even trying to take on such a bewildering complex set of issues. We emerge from his book full of insights and questions about the meaning of the term 'liberal' and the ways it might be nuanced by one's erotic vitality. -- James Soderholm, Baylor University
Byron: The Erotic Liberal is a keen biographical and critical account of Byron's politics of feeling. In such chapters as that on the narrator of Don Juan as homoerotic, Gross provokes and persuades. -- Carl Woodring, Columbia University
Jonathan Gross demonstrates a sound knowledge of historical contexts, cultural codes, and Byron scholarship. * Studies In Romanticism *
This book is a significant contribution to Byron studies. Gross is well informed in the social and political details of Byron's English milieu, but he is also well prepared to read Byron's career as erotic liberal through the lens of contemporary gay studies and through the biblical story of Joseph. His ability to see connections between Byron and contemporary American liberalism is ingenious. -- Peter Graham, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Byron: The Erotic Liberal Chapter 2 Byron's Politics of Feeling Chapter 3 Byron's Politics of Sentimentalism Chapter 4 Byron and the Story of Joseph: The Bride of Abydos, Hebrew Melodies, and Don Juan Chapter 5 Cosmopolitan Liberalism: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, III, and De L'Allemagne Chapter 6 "Get[ting] into Lord's Ground": Byron's Aristocratic Liberalism in the Pope-Bowles Controversy and Marino Faliero Chapter 7 "One Half of What I Should Say": Byron's Gay Narrator in Don Juan Chapter 8 The Liberal as Periodical and Political Posture Chapter 9 "Still Let Me Love!": Byron in Greece Chapter 10 Byron and the Liberal Imagination in America
