The Struggles of Conscience forms one of that subset of The Tales concerned with the rise and fall of young men (other prominent examples include Tale 5, The Patron, Tale 11, Edward Shore and Tale 21, The Learned Boy). Although these tales are very different in their particular protagonists and their central issues, it is …
Continue reading Crabbe – Tale 14: The Struggles of Conscience
The Newstead Abbey Byron Review is published annually, and consists mainly of papers which have been given at various Byron conferences in the preceding year, book reviews and a few pieces which appear to have been specially written for the Review. The 2010 edition contains quite a lot of interest to the Byron enthusiast. I …
So I return to produce the first monthly miscellany since February. It is my intention under my new regime that these miscellanies will actually be shorter and I will have more individual entries. Since my recovery on August 5th (as usual it was fairly sudden and I can therefore be specific) the rest of the …
Occasionally I feel in the need of a rant. Most recently my wrath has been incurred by a BBC4 Programme entitled In Their Own Words. I have decided to try to give my ire a more theoretical and, hopefully, objective framework by considering the topic of dumbing-down. Dumbing-down is a much misused term to which …
'Byron's Religions' was the title of the 2010 one-day Conference of the Newstead Abbey Byron society held at Nottingham University on May 1st. Personally I think that despite some very interesting papers I found this Conference something of a disappointment. Of course this may have much to do with the fact that I was not …
I subscribe to the Byron Journal which is a bi-annual publication of The Byron Society. It is a somewhat strange mixture of extremely academic articles (especially most of the lengthy book review section), reports from various conferences and Byron societies around the world, and articles on various Byron related matters. Although some of the articles, …
Continue reading Byron Journal – Academia and Byron’s Sexuality
I re-read, with more concentration, Caryl Churchill's Fen (1983). It is a remarkable piece of work mainly concerned with the lives of a number of women in a Fen village. There are a couple of male characters - Mr Tewson, the landowner, and Frank, for whom one of the women, Val, is leaving her husband and …
'Byron and Women (and men)' was the title of a one-day Conference held at Nottingham University on 2nd May which I attended. A one-day Conference has many advantages for me in terms of not having to leave home for the night and Nottingham is an easy drive. The Conference was quite small and thus not …
I have just finished Fiona McCarthy's biography Byron Life and Legend (2002). I am not going to write at any great length about this but will say that I found it in general pretty disappointing. McCarthy's particular 'angle' on B. is to stress the homosexual side of his bi-sexuality. Now I have absolutely no doubt …
In July 2008 I attended the 34th International Byron Conference which was held at St Andrews from the 14th to 18th July. As usual it takes me 6 months to a year to get around to writing anything about it! My only point of comparison for this event was the Exeter Trollope Conference. The Byron …
Moving Toyshop 