Lord Byron at Harrow School: Speaking Out, Talking Back, Acting Up, Bowing Out by Paul Elledge (review)

Paul Elledge. LordByron at Harrow School: Speaking Out, Talking Back, Acting Up, Bowing Out. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 221p. L. Adam Mekler Morgan State University Paul Elledge's Lord Byron at Harrow School: Speaking Out, Talking Back, Acting Up, Bowing Outis a comprehensive examination ofLord Byron's experiences during what Elledge shows to be a crucial period: Byron's matriculation at the Harrow School outside London from shortly after his thirteenth birthday in 1 801 until his departure at seventeen in 1805. By focusing on Byron's development during his adolescence, Elledge is certainly on safe ground when he highlights the significance ofdiis period on Byron's developing sense ofidentity. Nevertheless, Elledge successfully reveals how for Byron this time was especially important in determining what Elledge describes as "the text that Byron would famously become" (2). Elledge uses Byron's three Speech Day performances in 1804 and 1805 as the focal points for a critical reading ofhis life that encompasses a multitude offactors, both social and psychological. Essentially, Elledge argues, these performances "encoded and reflected a host of anxieties, conflicts, rivalries, and ambitions which they also helped him to manage" (1). Primary among these concerns is Byron's interaction with several important figures in his life, including members ofhis family (his mother, Augusta Leigh, Mary Duff), their circle (Henry Yelverton, Lord Grey de Rudiyn; MaryAnn Chaworth;John Hanson), and school associates (especially die Drurys: Joseph, Mark, and Henry). In addition, Elledge focuses on issues, including his physical disability, his relative impoverishment, and his lack ofsocial connections, which prevent him from gaining smooth entrance into the social world ofHarrow . These factors, therefore, necessarily become the main focus ofthe discussion ofhis experiences there. In fact, the specific analysis ofthe speeches diemselves— from Virgil's Aeneid, Edward Young's The Revenge, and Shakespeare's King Lear, respectively—account for only about one-fifth of Elledge's discussion. The primary sources for his discussion, dien, become die young Byron's letters and journals , in addition to his later letters and poems that refer back to the events occurring during his stay at Harrow. As a consequence, Elledge frequently participates in conjecture about the underlying significance ofmanyofByron's seeminglyinnocuous statements, presentinginteresting insight into the texts he examines. Unfortunately, however, at times this speculation can be carried too far. Forexample, his discussion ofone ofByron's letters to Augusta includes diis passage: "Byron signs off, this time reversing the 9« * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * FALL 2002 Reviews orderofhis relatedness to 'Friend and Brother,' as though both offeringand needing the first, in active expression, more urgently" (44). Later, foreshadowing his discussion of Byron's Lear speech, Elledge describes how one letter to Augusta "establishes the solidarity ofoffspring against the parent (compare the matrix of conflict in KingLear, the text from which Byron excerpts his recitation for 4July)" (71). While such connections may be valid—though comparing his mother to King Lear is certainly astretch—theydo suggest an unnecessarydesire to uncover every possible example ofthe developments he describes in Byron's sense ofself. Although Elledge acknowledges diis tendency, even his disclaimers occasionally seem to cancel themselves out: "By citing these references I do not suggest diat Byron is already plotting the seduction ofhis halfsister or finds in them encouragement to do so. But as odiers have pointed out, all ofByron's early (female) loves belonged to his extended family" (119). One might wonder why such a qualification is necessary. To be fair, such examples are only aberrations in an overall exceptionally written book. For the most part, Elledge weaves the different direads ofhis argument together with precision, especially when exploring Byron's relationships to the Drurys and his changing perception ofthe obstacles diat initially impede his enjoyment ofHarrow. Elledge effectivelydemonstrates how each ofthe diree Speech Day performances allows Byron to foster and express an increasingly strong sense ofself-confidence as he prepares to assume a more adult position in society. The culmination ofthis success occurs when Elledge shows diat Byron's choice ofLear as his final speech before leaving for Cambridge is a mature one, precisely because of Byron's apparent indifference to the possibility that this speech might "revive the ridicule ofhis lameness, poverty, and marginalization" (158...