George Gordon Byron, Darkness

Neil Forsyth (Université de Lausanne)

Ed. by Daniel Robinson, Widener University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837.
Vol. editors: Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Daniel Robinson (Widener University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1816

Places

England (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Horror
Poem
Utopian / Dystopian

Resources

“Darkness” was one of several poems Byron wrote in an extraordinary burst of creativity during the summer of 1816. Ignored for a long time (Ian Jack’s 1952 chapter on Byron in the Oxford History of English Literature does not mention it, and he even remarks that “Little need be said of Byron’s lyrics”, 52), it is now, in the wake of eco-criticism and concerns about climate catastrophe, regarded as one of his most important poems and is regularly anthologized. It follows the form of the “Conversation poems” launched by Coleridge in 1795—relatively brief meditations on some particular life experience. Like them it is written in blank verse, i.e., unrhymed iambic pentameter, with no deviation from the form though …

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2128 words

Citation: Forsyth, Neil. "Darkness". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 September 2016 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=34205, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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