... as embracing an equivalent of the arch’s empty space within her own depths of being. The sense that we cannot be our centre paralyses ‘Byronic’ heroes – as illustrated by an important passage in The Two Foscari – but is the source of Aurora’s simultaneous gravity and radiance. In my two books...

...This chapter takes an original approach to Byron’s much-discussed engagement with the early Risorgimento by focusing not on biographical aspects, but rather on formal issues. It centres on The Two Foscari in the context of the highly politicised contemporary Italian critical...

...This chapter concentrates on Byron’s dramatic representations of Italian history – Marino Faliero, The Two Foscari and The Deformed Transformed. It demonstrates the extent to which ‘play’ – in its performative and sportive, but also competitive...

...This chapter discusses the third of Byron's historical dramas, The Two Foscari, and returns to the question of the neo-classical element in the historical plays. This historical drama is defined as the most neo-classical of the historical dramas. Byron contended that in his...

... politics and the conflict between proponents of its maritime and landed empires enriches readings of Marino Faliero and The Two Foscari. Issues of gender identity loom large in Sardanapalus, which, along with the other plays, says much about the Byronic...

...A number of Byron’s works – in particular The Two Foscari but also ‘The Prisoner of Chillon’, Manfred, and Sardanapalus – can be located firmly within the Gothic. The tyrannical burden exerted by ancestry, for example, is a Gothic theme seen...

...2. Jacques-Louis David, The Lictors bringing Brutus the Bodies of his Sons. Painting, 1789. Musée du Louvre, Paris In both Marino Faliero and The Two Foscari, Lord Byron's heroes exemplify that notion of self-controlled manliness which emanated...