This thesis is a critical study of Lord Byron's poetic drama, Cain. Most critics in the past have seen the work as a personal statement of religious skepticism on the part of Lord Byron, and hence as an out-and-out attack on traditional, Christian doctrine. With this preconception in mind, they have concerned themselves with pointing out attitudes and ideas in the play which may be said to be antithetical to the Christian world view, and they have then assessed the play simply in these terms. It is the contention of this paper that this presupposition has led the critics away from the realm of meaning intended by Lord Byron, and that a proper understanding of the play can only arise from a full, critical study of the central issue with which this "metaphysical" drama is concerned. The method followed is to analyse the differences in form, structure and argument between two accounts of this story - that found in the Bible, and Byron's poetic drama - on the assumption that such radical changes as we shall note are essential to the conveyance of Byron's peculiar meaning, and that a study of them must reveal the proper coherence and unity of Byron's work. We shall see that Cain is not a mere recounting of this story, but rather that it is a reconceptualization of the predicament facing Adam and Eve and the first family, structured so as to focus upon the human situation, so chat in the work Byron is not concerned with religious values, but with human values; not concerned to advance or refute traditional, religious concepts, but to reveal his insights into the common, human predicament. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Proefschrift--Utrecht. / "Stellingen": [4] p. laid in.

Proefschrift--Utrecht. / "Stellingen": [4] p. laid in.

This dissertation on Byron's Don Juan begins with a history and analysis of the stanza form. Since ottava rima is a two-fold structure, comprising an alternately rhyming sestet followed by an independent couplet, it encourages the expression of dialectical ideas. Byron's prosodic virtuosity uses this potential to create a multivalent tissue of tones which is essentially—and almost infinitely—ironic. A view of prosody is developed here which is unique in its perception of the poem's existence in terms of a reading that unfolds in "real time." For various reasons, "reader-response" critics have not yet taken much cognizance of prosody. Don Juan is a good testing-ground for their approach because its narrator constantly addresses his reader, insisting on a present time which actively accumulates a past and projects a future, as a reader's consciousness moves sequentially forward through the text. The present time of the verse rhythms is the present time of the discourse, which is often most self-reflexive in the famous "digressions." Some of these begin with an epic simile whose vehicle grows out of proportion to its tenor; others are triggered by an interruption of the story, as the narrator—like a Renaissance improvisor in ottava rima— suddenly addresses his audience directly. Still other digressions are not metaleptic leaps from a fictional to a "real" world, or from one fictional world to another, however; they are the result of the narrator's tendency to linger too long in one world, elaborating descriptions until his story is forgotten. Despite the poem's many-voiced, digressive insouciance, an investigation of its moral and metaphysical components reveals that its irony has limits. Maugre those critics who would claim Don Juan as the paradigmatic work of unlimited, infinitely regressive Romantic irony, the issue of political liberty is not to be joked about, unlike the problem of erotic love. At this stable point in an otherwise absurd universe, Byron reveals a non-ironic self under the ironic mask. More effectively than traditional autobiography, because it is enacted rather than reported, this poem recreates its author dramatically, in terms of a shifting triangular relationship between narrator, protagonist and reader. The temporal locus of this relationship is a fictional present tense grounded in the "real" present time of a reading of the poem. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Mak, Ka Yu. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 122-125). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / "Introduction: Don Juan: ""the most readable poem of its length""" --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter One: --- Parodying Authorial Presence in Don Juan and Orlando --- p.12 / Don Juan and Orlando as Literary Jokes --- p.13 / Don Juan and Orlando as Cross-Genre Literature --- p.15 / Common Literary Predecessors --- p.18 / The Byronic Biographer --- p.22 / "Fictional Life, Real Life" --- p.28 / Literary Tyrant and Liberal Equivocator --- p.33 / Their Ambiguous Human Portraits --- p.42 / The Parodies' Resolution --- p.51 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- The Modern Artist's Listless Monologue in Don Juan and The Waves --- p.57 / Don Juan as a Modern Man's Monologue --- p.58 / The Waves as Don Juan's Modem Counterpart --- p.63 / "The Wave's Narrative Frame and ""Dramatic Soliloquies""" --- p.66 / The Complication of the Narrative Perspective(s) --- p.70 / Byron's Young Man --- p.74 / Yet Byron never made tea as you do --- p.77 / The Making of Modem Artists --- p.82 / The Infant and the World --- p.86 / "The Wo/Man ""Outside the Thinker""" --- p.96 / The Death of Heroes --- p.103 / Social Alienation --- p.108 / Ennui and Boredom --- p.111 / Yet Life Goes On --- p.115 / Conclusion --- p.118 / Works Cited --- p.122

Thèse de doctorat : Lettres : Paris 12 : 2007. / Thèse uniquement consultable au sein de l'Université Paris 12 (Intranet). Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr. : 544 réf. Index.