Editorial

The unprecedented events caused by Covid-19 have disrupted the rhythm of things across the globe this year, but I do hope this finds you all safe and well!

In unrelated yet equally sombre terms, the Byron world saw the passing of the renowned biographer Fiona MacCarthy, OBE (1940–2020), author of Byron: Life and Legend (2002), while we also lost two colossi of literary criticism, Harold Bloom (1930–2019) and George Steiner, FBA (1929–2020).

However, a new issue of the journal is here to distract you. The first two essays, by Piya Pal-Lapinski and G.B. Rizzoli, present stimulating insights into a somewhat neglected sphere of Byron Studies, namely the poet’s encounters with the Ottoman Empire. Pal-Lapinski’s essay invites us on a grand Ottoman tour, detailing the ways in which the operatic reception of Ottoman history and culture resonates with Byron’s own appraisal and employment of them. Rizzoli’s revisioning of Byron’s encounter with Ali Pasha uncovers, against the strictly defined politics of Ali’s court, the Byronic moulding of facts and fiction, as well as a new Byron letter in transcription. Agustín Coletes Blanco’s essay then traces the ways in which Byron and three other Romantic poets formulated their support for Spain during two instances of Spanish national crisis. The fourth essay, by Francesco Marchionni, enquires into the theoretical intricacies of mourning and the interconnectedness of poetry and death, relating these to Byron’s engagement with Promethean myth in Childe Harold I and II and ‘Prometheus’. The final essay, by Jan V. Hirschmann, presents a comprehensive medical reassessment and general review of Byron’s lameness as reported in the poet’s letters, journals and recorded conversations, supplemented by visual material.

The issue also brings you the annual instalment of book reviews, ranging from Richard Deakin’s Byron novel to an array of academic monographs on a variety of Romantic-period subjects, as well as an interesting ‘Note to the Editor’ on Byron and T.S. Eliot, and the remaining Society reports.

While 2020 remains on hold and Byronic events, like much else, are being put back to 2021, we bring you reports from two exciting international conferences which took place in December 2019 – the Byron Society conference commemorating the bicentenary of Don Juan held at Nottingham, and the ‘Late Romanticism’ conference held at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Fortunately, the traditional Byronic gathering at Newstead Abbey and the IABS conference at Thessaloniki have been rescheduled, so, for now, it remains for us to stay safe and carry on reading (and writing and submitting material to the journal). In the meantime, I hope this issue provides some much-needed connection to the Byron world we are all eagerly waiting to return to.