Manfred 's Mental Theater and the Construction of Knowledge

Byron’s Manfred marks a turning point in the evolution of its author’s epistemology. Through the drama’s construction, action, and dialogue, Byron frames knowledge as a series of choices and as a series of rejections. In so doing, he suggests that what is usually accepted as knowledge is in fact always fundamentally unsound and that actual knowledge is unattainable. Manfred is an inherently teasing text, one that mocks the possibility of truth by mocking its hero and itself. Through this teasing, Byron uses Manfred’s skepticism to demonstrate the liberating power of radical doubt.