Oxford Handbooks The Oxford Handbook of Lord Byron (Hardcover)

The Oxford Handbook of Lord Byron offers the latest in critical thinking about the poet that defined the Romantic era across Europe and beyond. The volume presents forty-four groundbreaking essays that enable readers to assess Lord Byron s central position in Romantic traditions and his profound and far-reaching influence on British European and world culture. The chapters are organized into five sections- Works Biographical Contexts Literary and Cultural Contexts Afterlives and Reading Byron Now -that guide readers through the most important issues and frameworks for interpreting Byron. Works presents original readings of Byron s key works and many of his lesser-known ones giving space to extensive studies of his great epic Don Juan and the poem that brought him fame Childe Harold s Pilgrimage. Biographical Contexts invites readers to consider Byron s life through key themes and patterns. Literary and Cultural Contexts sets out the most important intellectual traditions from which Byron s work emerged and in which it developed. Afterlives shows readers the extent of Byron s influence on literature art music and politics in Europe and beyond. Reading Byron Now advances the critical agendas that are shaping Byron Studies today. The Handbook tackles key themes associated with Byron including the Byronic Hero cosmopolitanism liberalism sexuality mobility scepticism the Gothic celebrity culture and much more. For new readers of Byron the volume provides an excellent grounding in his life and work and for specialists it opens up exciting new approaches to an icon of Romantic literature.