The International Byron Societies 2021
- The International Byron Societies 2021
- The Byron Society
The year 2020 had been a difficult year for everyone, but although the plague persisted into 2021 The Byron Society did not let it hamper our activities or our enthusiasm for all things Byronic. In fact, despite the persistent hold of Covid-19 on the world, 2021 was a very exciting year for The Byron Society, not only because we welcomed our newest and youngest member in the form of my baby (given the suitably Byronic name of Conrad) but also because we ventured – with some trepidation – into the unknown waters of online talks.
Many of you joined us for our inaugural online lecture from Christine Kenyon Jones and Geoffrey Bond on their wonderful book of Byron portraits and memorabilia, and many more continued to attend our online events throughout the year. Talks on Byron's bust, his animals, and his women were listened to by people from around the world – as were other online lectures on Samuel Rogers and Mary Shelley. In fact, our online lectures have proven so popular that we are now going to make them a permanent fixture in our events programmes, catering to a raft of new members from across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas.
However, that does not mean we have abandoned our traditional face-to-face events. Our first such last year was a combined concert and talk (from me) on Byron's Italian liaisons at St Marylebone Parish Church as part of their annual festival. The beautiful music was carefully chosen to match Byron's adventures, and the recording of the event is available on the website. Other highly successful events followed, including a brilliant talk on John Polidori, a fascinating exploration of Byron and tragedy, and a book launch.
Our 2022 events are equally exciting, we have already had talks on Percy Shelley's sense of humour, editing Byron's poetry, Byron's complex relationship with sleep, and Caroline Lamb's Glenarvon as the source of the modern vampire romance novels. And we have much more to come – so please do visit our website to see what we have planned, including a series of special conference panels, and a combination of online and in-person events.
However, 2021 was not all thrills and excitement. We were all saddened to learn of the passing of great figures in Byronism, William St Clair and Brother Teilo, both of whom will be much missed by all of us. But new Byronists are emerging every year and it is our pleasure and great honour to be able to support them and help their research with bursaries and travel grants. And I just want to finish with a small reminder that our PhD bursary award deadline falls on the 31st of May each year, and we have just increased the amount to £5,000. So please do let colleagues and students know about this bursary as the 2023–24 application will open in December of this year.
I hope to see you all at some of our online and physical events soon!
Emily Paterson-Morgan
Director
Emily Paterson-Morgan is an independent scholar and the Director of The BSociety. She has published a number of articles on various aspects of Byron's life and works, recently edited a special issue of The Byron Journal, and is currently researching Byron's engagement with adultery discourses in English print culture. She is based in Dubai, UAE, where she works as Head of Publishing for Knowledge E.
- Italian Byron Society
The activities of the Italian Byron Society during 2021 and the first few months of 2022 were greatly affected, of course, by the ongoing pandemic. No conferences have been [End Page 77] held since the mini-conference in January 2020 in Venice, although members did, of course, participate in the Thessaloniki conference in June 2021.
Work continues on the Byron Museum at Palazzo Guiccioli in Ravenna and an inauguration date has been tentatively set for April 2023. The museum's steering committee...
