Determining Unknown Modes of Being: A Map of Byron’s Ghosts and Spirits
Determining Unknown Modes of Being: A Map of Byron’s Ghosts and Spirits
This chapter provides an overview of the nature, function, authority and significance of spectral entities in Byron’s verse. While ghosts and spirits are often seen as ‘bit-part’ characters, peripheral to the poet’s thinking or are univocally glossed as an insignia of indeterminacy, it shows that Byron thought with discriminating precision about ‘beings of the mind’, heavenly and infernal spirits, ‘palpable presences from the realm of the dead’ and religious or eroticized resurrections. The chapter contrasts Byron’s fascination with spirits and ghosts with other Romantic writers’ depictions of extra-material presences. This paves the way for a discussion on the radical incongruities and transferences between spirit and matter that preoccupy Byron and invite diverse aesthetic and theological inquiries.
Keywords: spectral entities, poetry, ghosts, spirits, Romantic writers, matter
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