Portrait of Lord Byron in the dress of an Albanian, 1814, Thomas Phillips. © Queen's Printer and Controller of HMSO, 2001. UK Government Art Collection.
A new collection of writings and artefacts relating to Lord Byron, highlighting the poet's achievements, is to be launched on September 13 2007 at the University Of Manchester’s John Rylands Library as part of a new world-class Byron Archive.
The archive forms part of The Byron Centre, directed by the University’s Dr Alan Rawes, and is the first multidisciplinary grouping of academics dedicated to looking at the massive significance of Byron in European literature, music, art and politics.
"Byron was perhaps the most important European in the first half of the nineteenth century in terms of his influence on literature, art, music and politics - with the possible exception of Napoleon,” explained Dr Rawes.
"But this is not known by many Britons, who sadly still regard him as little more than an over-sexed Regency dandy.”
A leading figure in what later became defined as Romanticism, George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) left behind a considerable canon of poetry including his best-known narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan.
The John Rylands Library in Manchester is to host the archive.
However, his fame in the UK today still rests to a great degree on an extravagant life punctuated by broken love affairs, debt, incest and sodomy.
“Other Europeans did not let Byron's bisexuality and affair with his half-sister detract from his greatness,” said Dr Rawes. "As Bertrand Russell put it, on the continent Byron's way of feeling and outlook became factors in great events.”
“There are statues of Byron all over Europe, more than 40 operas have been inspired by his writing, and he was a formative influence on, among many others, Lamartine, Pushkin, Nietzsche, Berlioz, Liszt, Delacroix, Bismarck and Mazzini.”
"He became a world icon by combining freedom-championing poetry with political action - helping to liberate Greece from the Turks and dying of fever in Messolonghi while training Greek soldiers in 1824 at the age of 36. His death sent shock waves across Europe."
The new archive includes contributions from Greece, Australia, Germany and the Far East and a bronze bust of the poet made by Greek sculpture Nicolas Kotziamani.
A small handbag made by Byron's childhood love Mary Chaworth is also included, together with material from Byron societies around the world and 30 years of research by renowned Byron enthusiast Megan Boyes.
