BYRONS WAR : ROMANTIC REBELLION, GREEK REVOLUTION

Roderick Beaton re-examines Lord Byron s life and writing through the long trajectory of his relationship with Greece. Beginning with the poet s youthful travels in 1809–1811, Beaton traces his years of fame in London and self-imposed exile in Italy, that culminated in the decision to devote himself to the cause of Greek independence. Then comes Byron s dramatic self-transformation, while in Cephalonia, from Romantic rebel to new statesman , subordinating himself for the first time to a defined, political cause, in order to begin laying the foundations, during his hundred days at Missolonghi, for a new kind of polity in Europe – that of the nation-state as we know it today. Byron s War draws extensively on Greek historical sources and other unpublished documents to tell an individual story that also offers a new understanding of the significance that Greece had for Byron, and of Byron s contribution to the origin of the present-day Greek state.