Transformations of Byron in the literature of British India

This essay examines the reception of Byron’s work, and some responses to it, among the poets of the British community in India during the first half of the nineteenth century. The first section sketches some of the routes by which Byron’s work and accounts of his life were circulated and read in In...

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Main Author: Ni Fhlathuin, Maire
Format: Article
Published: Cambridge University Press 2014
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2161/
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author Ni Fhlathuin, Maire
author_facet Ni Fhlathuin, Maire
author_sort Ni Fhlathuin, Maire
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
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description This essay examines the reception of Byron’s work, and some responses to it, among the poets of the British community in India during the first half of the nineteenth century. The first section sketches some of the routes by which Byron’s work and accounts of his life were circulated and read in India and demonstrates the impact of his work on the poets of British India. These poets co-opted Byronic texts into their own writings in the form of epigraphs and other citations and allusions, composed responses to Byron and his work, and imitated the tropes, formats and themes of Byron’s poetry. The second section of the essay looks in more detail at selected examples of the many adaptations and imitations of Byron’s work that proliferated during this period. In these poems, Byronic models are propriated by writers whose chosen professions or relationships have the effect of aligning them with the colonial project of the East India Company. They re-imagined the encounter with the romanticized Orient that characterizes many of Byron’s works in response to the specific political and cultural contexts of British India in the nineteenth century.
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spelling nottingham-21612020-05-04T20:17:22Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2161/ Transformations of Byron in the literature of British India Ni Fhlathuin, Maire This essay examines the reception of Byron’s work, and some responses to it, among the poets of the British community in India during the first half of the nineteenth century. The first section sketches some of the routes by which Byron’s work and accounts of his life were circulated and read in India and demonstrates the impact of his work on the poets of British India. These poets co-opted Byronic texts into their own writings in the form of epigraphs and other citations and allusions, composed responses to Byron and his work, and imitated the tropes, formats and themes of Byron’s poetry. The second section of the essay looks in more detail at selected examples of the many adaptations and imitations of Byron’s work that proliferated during this period. In these poems, Byronic models are propriated by writers whose chosen professions or relationships have the effect of aligning them with the colonial project of the East India Company. They re-imagined the encounter with the romanticized Orient that characterizes many of Byron’s works in response to the specific political and cultural contexts of British India in the nineteenth century. Cambridge University Press 2014 Article PeerReviewed Ni Fhlathuin, Maire (2014) Transformations of Byron in the literature of British India. Victorian Literature and Culture, 42 (3). pp. 573-593. ISSN 1060-1503 http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9318502&fileId=S1060150314000151 doi:10.1017/S1060150314000151 doi:10.1017/S1060150314000151
spellingShingle Ni Fhlathuin, Maire
Transformations of Byron in the literature of British India
title Transformations of Byron in the literature of British India
title_full Transformations of Byron in the literature of British India
title_fullStr Transformations of Byron in the literature of British India
title_full_unstemmed Transformations of Byron in the literature of British India
title_short Transformations of Byron in the literature of British India
title_sort transformations of byron in the literature of british india
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2161/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2161/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2161/