Byron and the Good Death

Abstract

The essay argues that throughout his writing life Byron was fascinated by the margin of life: the moment of death. For Byron and his heroes, looking squarely at other people’s deaths is understood to signify and promote a kind of moral fortitude. Byron’s verse, however, often elides the moment of death, offering no description of it, but offering instead an aposiopesis – a rhetorical break that allows the moment of death to disappear into the texture of the verse. The essay investigates how Byron operates at the margins of life and also at the margins of language, suggesting that those margins become central to his poetry.