Byron and Orientalism

Of all the English Romantic poets Byron is often thought of as the one who was most familiar with the East. His travels, it is claimed, give him a huge advantage with which contemporaries like Southey, Moore, Shelley, and Coleridge, who had comparable orientalist ambitions, could not compete. Byron and Orientalism sets out to examine this thesis. Based on a conference held in 2005 at Nottingham Trent University, it looks at Byronâs knowledge of the East, and of its religions in particular, in greater detail than ever before. Essays are included on Byronâs Turkish Tales, Edward Saidâs attitude to Byron, Byronâs version of Islam, Byronâs Hebrew Melodies, and Byronâs influence on the orientalist writings of Pushkin and Lermontov. There is a massive introduction, setting Byronâs eastern poetry in the contexts both of European literature, English literature, and the poetâs own confused and disorientated existence.