Award Date

1-1-2006

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

English

First Committee Member

Timothy Erwin

Number of Pages

286

Abstract

A Poetic Canvas: Byron and Visual Culture argues for a reading of Byron's poems within the cultural context of the sister arts of poetry and painting. In addition, the theatre and sculpture were also influential as visual inspiration for Byron. This study reveals the poet's substantial knowledge of the visual arts; consequently, informed by images he knew, readings convey a richer context of significance. The influence of drawings, print caricature, and paintings is found to be substantial, and the research challenges Byron's own statements, often repeated, that he knew nothing of painting. Although Byron is regarded as a poet of the Romantic Period, he was a reluctant Romantic. This study will show the lingering validation of the Augustan Period in the first decades of the nineteenth century, even as poetry was changing in both theme and form. Byron regarded his contemporary poets as writing "upon a wrong revolutionary poetical system." Despite his assertion that Pope was the epitome of British poetry, Byron was extremely proud of Don Juan, his unique masterpiece, and insisted that the poem was part of a literary tradition, a work that extends the heritage of poetic satire.

Keywords

Canvas; Culture; England; George Gordon Byron, Baron Byron; Poetic; Regency Period; Visual; Visual Culture

Controlled Subject

British literature; English literature--Irish authors; Irish literature

File Format

pdf

File Size

10956.8 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

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