Poetic Development and the Romantic Self in Exile in Byron and Shelley

“This manuscript differs by focusing on the subject of exile, and by offering sustained analysis and instructive comparisons between Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound” and Byron’s “Don Juan”. The author is to be commended for her knowledge of the secondary materials. Though I have compiled bibliographies in the period, I found myself continually learning from the author’s citations of such scholars as Jean Hall, Lloyd Abbey, Timothy Clark, William Ulmer, Andrea Leighton, Timothy Webb, and Hermann Fischer. Quotation is kept to a minimum and a large number of works are consequently discussed in this volume, which will make it appealing to an undergraduate reader….Building on the work of Brewer and Robinson, the author notes how Byron and Shelley chose poetic genres, styles, and subjects which helped them solve the artistic dilemmas (and rich possibilities) posed by their exile.” – Dr. Jonathan Goss, DePaul University

“…Nijibayashi does succeed by a critical approach of some complexity in writing about the work of both Shelley and Byron that leads us from matters of superficial similarity to the profound difference of their creative natures….Nijibayashi is able to construct a map of their creative development which leads from these shared Romantic commonplaces to the eerily disparate masterpieces of Prometheus Unbound and Don Juan.” – John Reed, Manchester

Table of Contents:
Preface
Introduction: Questioning “The Spirit of the Age”
1. Julian and Maddalo: Theory and Experience in Exile
2. Narratives of Imaginative Exile: Byron’s Transformation of the East; Shelley’s Transcendence from the East
3. Strategies for the Stage: The Irony of Idealism in Shelley’s The Cenci; The Irony of Heroism in Byron’s Historical Dramas
4. Prometheus Unbound: The Cosmic Development of the Poet Figure
5. Poetic Self-Completion in Don Juan
Conclusion: Answering to “The Spirit of the Age”
Appendix; Bibliography; Index