Byron's and Shelley's Revolutionary Ideas in Literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.17.1.2Keywords:
Romanticist era, poetry, insurgent, Byron, ShelleyAbstract
The paper explores the revolutionary spirit of literary works of two Romantic poets: George Gordon Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. In the period of conservative early 19th century English society that held high regard for propriety, tradition, decorum, conventions and institutionalized religion, the two poets' multi-layered rebellious and subversive writing and thinking instigated public uproar and elitist outrage, threatening to undermine traditional concepts and practices. Acting as precursors to new era notions and liberties, their opuses present literary voices of protest against 19th century social, religious, moral and literary conventions. Their revolutionary and non-conformist methods and ideas are discussed and analyzed in this paper through three works of theirs: Byron's The Vision of Judgement and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Shelley's Prometheus Unbound.
References
Abrams, M. H. (2003). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: Norton & Co.
Abrams, M.H. (1975). English Romantic Poets. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barbuscia, G. (2016). Metamorphoses of the Devil in works of Percy and Mary Shelley. In Krivokapic, M. & Nikcevic-Batricevic, A. (Eds.), Re-Entering old spaces: Essays on Anglo-American Literature. (pp.41-65). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Barcus, E. J. (2003). Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Critical Heritage. London: Taylor & Francis e-Library.
Butler, M. (1981). Romantics, Rebels & Reactionaries: English Literature and its Background 1760-1830. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Byron, G. G. (2004). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Project Gutenberg Ebook.
Byron, G. G. (2006). The Works of Lord Byron. Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
Cameron, K. (1943). The Political Symbolism of Prometheus Unbound. PMLA, 58(3), 728-753. https://doi.org/10.2307/458831
Caminita, M. C. (2002). Explaining the Explanation: Byron's Notes to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Master's dissertation, Louisiana State University, USA). Retrieved from http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-0608102-023345/unrestricted/Caminita_thesis.pdf
Casaliggi, C. & Fermanis, P. (2016). Romanticism: A Literary and Cultural History. New York: Routledge.
Cochran, P. (2003). Byron and Napoleon. Retrieved from http://www.newsteadabbeybyronsociety.org/works/downloads/byron_napoleon.pdf
Dizdar, S. (1999). Poezija Engleskog Romantizma. Sarajevo: TKP Šahinpašić.
Dizdar, S. (2002). Romantic Constellations: An Anthology of English Romantic Poetry. Sarajevo: BTC Šahinpašić.
Elliott, G. (1924). Byron and the Comic Spirit. PMLA, 39(4), 897-909. https://doi.org/10.2307/457253
Elton, O. (1925). The Present Value of Byron. The Review of English Studies, 1(1), 24-39. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/507795
Ferber, M. (2012). The Cambridge Introduction to British Romantic Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Forward, S. (n.d.). The Romantics. Retrieved from https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-romantics
Franklin, C. (2006). Byron. New York: Taylor & Francis e-Library.
Gingerich, S. (1918). Shelley's Doctrine of Necessity versus Christianity. PMLA, 33(3), 444-473. https://doi.org/10.2307/456935
Glenn, A. J. (2005). Notes on Middle English Romance. Retrieved from http://faculty.uca.edu/jona/second/romannot.htm#structure
Heath, S. (n.d.). Romanticism and Revolution. Retrieved from http://web.utk.edu/~gerard/romanticpolitics/revolution.html
Hoggle, E. J. (1988). Shelley's Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Isomaki, R. (1989). Love as Cause in Prometheus Unbound. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 29(4), 655-673. https://doi.org/10.2307/450605
Jones, E. (1981). Byron's Visions of Judgment. The Modern Language Review, 76(1), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.2307/3727007
Keach, W. (1997). Rise Like Lions? Shelley and the Revolutionary Left. International Socialism, 75. Retrieved from http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj75/keach.htm
Markovits, B. (2011, August 12). Rereading: Childe Harold by Lord Byron. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/12/byron-childe-harold-benjamin-markovits
Peterfreund, S. (1979). The Politics of Neutral Space in Byron's Vision of Judgment. Modern Language Quarterly, 40(3), 275-291. https://doi.org/10.1215/00267929-40-3-275
Price, M. L. M. (1953). English Literature in Germany. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rebec, G. (1903). Byron and Morals. International Journal of Ethics, 14(1), 39-54. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2376021
Redpath, T. (1973). The Young Romantics & Critical Opinion. London: Harrap & Co.
Reider, J. (1985). The 'One' in Prometheus Unbound. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 25(4), 775-800. https://doi.org/10.2307/450674
Ristić, R. (2000). Shelley's First Major Lyrics and Prometheus Unbound. Linguistics and Literature, 2(7), 69-86. Retrieved from http://facta.junis.ni.ac.rs/lal/lal2000/lal2000-02.pdf
Ruthetford, A. (Ed.). (1970). Byron (The Critical Heritage). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Shelley, P. B. (2003). The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Oxford: A Pan State Electronic Series Publication.
Sperry, M. S. (1981). Necessity and the Role of the Hero in Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. PMLA, 96(2), 242-254. doi:10.2307/461991
Thomson, W. A. (1994). In my Turn: Byron's The Vision of Judgment. English Studies, 75(6), 523-535. https://doi.org/10.1080/00138389408598943
Weaver, B. (1949). Prometheus Bound and Prometheus Unbound. PMLA, 64(1), 115-133. https://doi.org/10.2307/459673
West, P. (Ed.). (1963). Byron (A Collection of Critical Essays). New York: Prentice-Hall.
Yeats, B. W. (1961). The Philosophy of Shelley's Poetry. Essays and Introductions. New York: MacMillan.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2017 Elma Dedovic-Atilla

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Access Policy and Content Licensing
All published articles on the ESNBU site are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes. The terms on which the article is published allow the posting of the published article (Version of Record) in any repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Note that prior to, and including, Volume 10, Issue 2, 2024, articles were licensed under the Non-commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. The transition to CC BY 4.0 is effective as of Volume 11, Issue 1, 2025.
In other words, under the CC BY 4.0 license users are free to
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
Under the following terms:
Attribution (by) - You must give appropriate credit (Title, Author, Source, License), provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notice: No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
If the law requires that the article be published in the public domain, authors will notify ESNBU at the time of submission, and in such cases the article shall be released under the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver CC0 1.0 Universal.
Copyright
Copyright for articles published in ESNBU are retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. Authors retain full publishing rights and are encouraged to upload their work to institutional repositories, social academic networking sites, etc. ESNBU is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work. It is the author's responsibility to bring an infringement action if so desired by the author.
Exceptions to copyright policy
Occasionally ESNBU may co-publish articles jointly with other publishers, and different licensing conditions may then apply.