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The European Byron : Mobility, Cosmopolitanism, and Chameleon Poetry - Jonathan Gross

The European Byron

Mobility, Cosmopolitanism, and Chameleon Poetry

By: Jonathan Gross

Hardcover | 16 September 2025

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Byron concealed himself in various literary disguises, a process he called "mobility." In this study of influences on Byron's verse and Byron's European impact, I explore these borrowings and transformations as they manifested themselves in his reading. At issue is the very concept of romantic poetic voice. Framing himself in the tradition of the Irish yet cosmopolitan Thomas Moore, Byron adopted continental guises, imitating both Italian writers and political heroes, such as Dante, Machiavelli, and Tasso. In establishing an Italian identity, Byron relied upon the Italian writers he translated (Pulci, Dante), Thomas Moore's "Fudge Family in Paris," and Shelley's "Julian and Maddalo," as well as Goethe's Faust. This Europeanization of Byron should not conceal the fact that Byron adopted poses from his predecessors, such as Walter Scott, in order to fashion himself as a Scottish poet who also happened to be English. Byron became the writers he read: Moore, Shelley, Wordsworth, Scott, Foscolo, Lady Morgan, and Madame de Stael. Those who imitated Byron, particularly Alexander Pushkin and Adam Mickiewicz, often read him in French translations, but became acute interpreters of his literary example. They explained how the European Byron was created in the nineteenthcentury, and what it meant to be a Harold in Muscovite Cloak, or a Polish Byron, or any national reincarnation of this complex, chameleon poet. By borrowing from a wide eighteenth-century field, Byron showed how reading could become writing, fulfilling, for Pushkin and Mickiewicz, a mobile and chameleon definition of the epic, as a novel in verse or product of digressions and improvisations. As Peter Thorslev has shown, the Byronic hero was stitched together from works by Monbron, Radcliffe, Beckford, and other writers. I begin by examining Thomas Moore, whose Irish Melodies were a key influence on Hebrew Melodies, and whose Fudge Family in Paris helped shape the tone and style of Byron's Don Juan. Byron's conversations with Madame de Stael encouraged him to "Stick to the East," and he followed her example during his years in England. By examining the manuscripts and marginalia of Byron, the author shows the key influence of William Beckford, Robert Southey, and Isaac Disraeli on the construction of "Vision of Judgment"; of John Moore's Zeluco, Madame de Stael's Corinne, UgoFoscolo's Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis, and Lady Morgan's Italy on Childe Harold I-II, Hebrew Melodies, and Childe Harold IV, and Don Juan. In "The Ironic Mode in Politics," the author considers Byron's support for the Greek Revolution, which he cast in cynical terms. His political/poetic example led Pushkin to enlist and Adam Mickiewicz as well, the latter of whom died in Istanbul. The museums that honor them present narratives of Byron's European impact, particularly his legacy in political liberalism. The book thus concludes by considering how scholarship on Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Oneg in transformed the epic into a novel in verse. Adam Mickiewicz's translation of "The Giaour" and his improvisations, which impressed Pushkin, draw on Byron's digressive style. Their epics, Eugene Oneg in and Pan Tadeusz, show the legacy of Byron's poetic influence and his political support for freedom of speech.
Industry Reviews

"This book is a significant gift to Byron and Byron Studies: a reading of the estranged Byron drawn from tormented and estranged Europe. Expelled from imperial England, he was their stranger and they took him in." - Jerome McGann, Emeritus Professor, the University of Virginia.



"European Byron reveals a capacious trans-European Byron, linking Byron to the cosmopolitan Shelley and Foscolo and, strikingly, tracing his impact on writers from Eastern Europe, particularly Pushkin and Mickiewicz. Grounded in textual details such as marginalia, the book explores Byron through field- defining approaches, including queer aesthetics, food studies, and eco-criticism." - Jeffrey N. Cox, the University of Colorado Distinguished Professor, Arts and Sciences, and Professor of Distinction in English and Humanities, the University of Colorado Boulder.



"Jonathan Gross's excellent close readings add substantially to our biographical, textual, and cultural understanding of Byron. They illuminate the depth of Byron's influence on Eastern European writers and the influence on him of local writers Beckford, Walpole, and Moore, how prominently camp figures into his works, and how its resistance to translation make European Byron distinct from English Byron." -Joseph Viscomi, James G. Kenan Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.



"The book shows an experienced Byron scholar dealing magisterially with his wide-ranging material. In his elegant style, Gross conjures up Byron as a practitioner of world literature and in his fresh approach he addresses not only experts and connoisseurs of Byron but also new readers who are stunned by Byron's (and Gross's) global view." - Norbert Lennartz, Chair of English Literature at the University of Vechta (Germany) and author of the full-length study Tears, Liquids and Porous Bodies Across the Ages: Niobe's Siblings (Bloomsbury, 2022).



"This is an important book on an important subject. It deals broadly with the reception of Byron by later European writers and does so with thoroughness, scholarship, and flair. It is marked both by its very wide range of reference and the intense personal, probing interest of the author in his subject." - Bernard Beatty, Senior Fellow in English at Liverpool University and Associate Fellow in Divinity at St Andrews University.



"A learned and lively collection of deftly interconnected essays, The European Byron ranges broadly and digs deeply into European poetry and politics, centering on Byron but including his predecessors and descendants, most notably Mickiewicz and Pushkin, in terms of their shared mobility and cosmopolitanism. Jonathan Gross admirably suits style to content in this eclectic, erudite, and engaging appraisal of the literary past that demonstrates its enduring relevance to our own time." -Peter Graham, Professor Emeritus of English, Virginia Tech.



"Just like the generous array of poets it analyzes, Gross's book is dazzling and multifaceted. Gross is among the world's preeminent Byron scholars, and he now shows us exactly why the political, sexual, and philosophical dimensions of Byron's "chameleon" poetry inspired writers across genres, national boundaries, and time." - Mark E. Canuel, Professor, Department of English, Director, Graduate Studies, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, USA.



"A fascinating panorama of Romanticism ideas and themes, Romantic poets and their mutual inspirations. The focus of this kaleidoscope is Byron and his extraordinary influence on his contemporaries, including Adam Mickiewicz. Challenging research stereotypes, Prof. Gross explores the European identity, mobility, cosmopolitanism, and chameleonism of Byron and other Romantic poets".-Maria Kalinowska, University of Warsaw.

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