Byron: The Poetry of Politics and the Politics of Poetry

'It is no great matter, supposing that Italy could be liberated, who or what is sacrificed. It is a grand object - the very poetry of politics.’ So wrote Lord Byron in his journal in February 1821. For a poet whose life and work are interlaced with action of multiple sorts, little attention has been devoted to Byron’s engagement with issues of politics. This volume examines the implications of reading and writing as themselves political acts; interrogates the politics inherent or implied in Byron’s poems and plays; and follows the trajectory of his political engagement, from the British House of Lords, via the Peninsular War, to his involvement in revolutionary politics abroad.