Matthew J. A. Green - Byron and the Politics of Freedom and Terror [2011][A]

Book Description
Publication Date: July 15, 2011
One can no longer speak of rights and freedoms without encountering the spectre of the 'terrorist', or without making allowances for a political existence which is excluded and/or excludes itself from the rule of law. Equally, however, the revolutionary conflicts of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries have bequeathed a legacy that raises questions of responsibility, freedom and democracy that are central to political intervention and critique. Byron's texts, which themselves engage with the legacy of the Enlightenment as well as with the promise and the terror of the French Revolution, offer scholars insight into his problematic representations of freedom, his personal and financial support of Italian and Greek independence movements, his complicated response to Napoleon and his interest in Gothic literature (the literature of terror), all of which are highly topical within our own historical moment.

About the Authors
MATTHEW GREEN is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Nottingham, UK. He has published widely on Blake and Byron. His research concentrates on examining the ways that works from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries speak to our own epoch. Specifically, his readings of earlier works are undertaken in the context of current critical theory and contemporary fiction.
PIYA PAL-LAPINSKI is Associate Professor of English at Bowling Green State University, USA. She has published on the nineteenth century British novel and imperialism. Her research focuses on the interdisciplinary and global contexts of nineteenth century literature and its intersections with contemporary theory.