Byron and Clare: ‘An indigestion of the mind’

Abstract

A common view of Byron’s development follows this pattern: he tries out various forms and styles, in a rather languid way, in his youth and early manhood, and completes Childe Harold by 1817, before acknowledging that he has been pursuing the wrong poetic path; inspired by a reading of John Hookham Frere’s Whistlecraft, and by his immersion in the Italian burlesque tradition, he launches himself into the ottava rima of Beppo, The Vision of Judgment, and Don Juan. He has found his true voice and style, his proper role as the age’s satirist.