Manfred
A Broadview Anthology of British Literature Edition
  • Publication Date: April 7, 2017
  • ISBN: 9781554813681 / 1554813689
  • 144 pages; 5½" x 8½"

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Manfred

A Broadview Anthology of British Literature Edition

  • Publication Date: April 7, 2017
  • ISBN: 9781554813681 / 1554813689
  • 144 pages; 5½" x 8½"

The quintessential depiction of the Byronic hero is accompanied in this edition by a substantial selection of contextual materials, including Byron’s original draft of the play’s conclusion; influences on the poem, such as Paradise Lost, Goethe’s Faust, and Vathek; further examples of the Byronic hero from the poet’s other writings; a selection of contemporary reviews; and an excerpt from Man-Fred, a dramatic parody in which the protagonist is reimagined as a chimney-sweep.

Comments

“With its incisive introduction, expertly annotated text, and exceptional roster of contextual materials (including rarely seen manuscript draft excerpts), this Broadview Manfred is an excellent teaching and reading edition of one of Byron’s most influential works.” — Harriet Kramer Linkin, New Mexico State University

“This edition of Manfred provides a teaching tool ideally suited to both undergraduate and graduate classrooms. The notes are clear and judicious, neither too many nor too few, and the introduction is a model of scholarship, offering vital information in clear prose. All in all, a welcome addition to the field.” — Emily Bernhard Jackson, University of Exeter

“This edition will prove a gift to teachers and students alike interested in experiencing Byron’s dark masterpiece of ‘mental theater’ in the contexts of the Byron-Shelley circle, the Gothic, Romantic Satanism, and Prometheanism, as well as the play’s manuscript, reception, and theatrical histories. The accessible and lively introduction provides an engaging sketch of Byron’s biography and prepares the reader to encounter the radical autonomy of the Byronic hero in this dramatic poem’s exploration of isolation, incest, and irreligion.” — Dan White, University of Toronto

“This lucidly annotated edition of Byron’s Manfred, with essential documents reflecting the play’s composition, literary antecedents, and reception, will give students just what they need to appreciate this rich and notoriously iconoclastic text.” — Alan Richardson, Boston College

Introduction

Manfred, A Dramatic Poem

In Context

    The Manuscript Version of Manfred, Act 3
    Literary Contexts

    • from John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667)
      Gothic Precursors of the Byronic Hero

        from Horace Walpole, The Mysterious Mother (1768)
        from William Beckford, Vathek (1786)
        from Anne Radcliffe, The Italian (1797)

      from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part One (1808)
      from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: Part One (1808)
      from Caroline Lamb, Glenarvon (1817)
      from Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818)
      from Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound (1820)

    Byron’s Life and Writing

      from The Corsair: A Tale (1814)
      from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto the Third (1816)
      “Prometheus” (1816)
      Selected Letters to Augusta Leigh
      Portraits: Byron in the 1810s

    Responses to Manfred

    • Contemporary Reviews
      • from The British Critic and Quarterly Theological Review (July 1817)
        from William Roberts, The British Review, and London Critical Journal (August 1817)
        from Francis Jeffrey, The Edinburgh Review or Critical Journal (August 1817)
        from The Gentleman’s Magazine (July 1817)
        from The Lady’s Monthly Museum (August 1817)
        from The Literary Gazette (June 1817)
        from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Über Kunst und Altertum (1820, written 1817)

    Manfred on Stage

      from The London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c. (November 1834)
      from Gilbert Abbot à Beckett, Man-Fred (1834)
      Paintings of Manfred
      from Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and Nobody (1883–91)

Our Editorial Team:

Joseph Black, University of Massachusetts
Leonard Conolly, Trent University
Kate Flint, University of Southern California
Isobel Grundy, University of Alberta
Roy Liuzza, University of Tennessee
Jerome McGann, University of Virginia
Anne Prescott, Barnard College
Barry Qualls, Rutgers University
Claire Waters, University of Virginia