Byron, Lord - David V. Erdman (essay date 1939)
David V. Erdman (essay date 1939)
SOURCE: Erdman, David V. “Byron's Stage Fright: The History of His Ambition and Fear of Writing for the Stage.” English Literary History 6 (1939): 219-33.
[In the following essay, Erdman maintains that “Byron's attitude towards his dramas is a significant clue to his behaviour generally and to his artistic behaviour in particular.”]
I composed it actually with a horror of the stage, and with a view to render even the thought of it impracticable, knowing the zeal of my friends that I should try that for which I have an invincible repugnance, viz. a representation.
(Byron to Murray, of Manfred, 9 March 1817)1
Unless I could beat them all, it would be nothing …
(Byron to Kinnaird, 31 March 1817)2
Why did Byron write plays ‘to reform the stage’—and then violently protest against...
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