Byron’s War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution

Roderick Beaton re-examines Lord Byron's life and writing through the long
trajectory of his relationship with Greece. Beginning with the poet's
youthful travels in 1809-1811, Beaton traces his years of fame in London
and self-imposed exile in Italy, that culminated in the decision to devote
himself to the cause of Greek independence. Then comes Byron's dramatic
self-transformation, while in Cephalonia, from Romantic rebel to ‘new
statesman', subordinating himself for the first time to a defined,
political cause, in order to begin laying the foundations, during his
‘hundred days' at Missolonghi, for a new kind of polity in Europe – that of
the nation-state as we know it today. Byron's War draws extensively on
Greek historical sources and other unpublished documents, to tell an
individual story that also offers a new understanding of the significance that
Greece had for Byron, and of Byron’s contribution to the origin of the
present-day Greek state.