Byron and the distorted prism
and Greek antiquity in his verse and obliterating the melancholic persona of the ‘brooding outsider’ in CHP who so often accompanied his musings on antiquity. As Maria Schoina succinctly comments, the Ottava Rima ‘ would allow [Byron] to laugh at the way things are rather than weep because they are so ’ (Schoina, 2021). Evidence for such co-existence between Greek modernity and Greek antiquity that so deafened the melancholic reverberations of the literary orthodox beating drum can be found in ‘ The isles of Greece ’ . Inserted in the 3 rd Canto of Don Juan and written in 1819, the song is a pastiche of modern patriotic songs by Greek nationalists expanded and extrapolated for Canto III, already giving the passage a ‘modern grounding’:
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their sun, is set.
Deceptively, the verse appears to be written in the lamenting style of CHP in that ancient Greece is used to convey the poet’s feelings on the subject. However, whil e the use of Greek antiquity is overt, this is not at the expense of Greek modernity. Maria Schoina again points out that ‘ [the] longing for an irretrievable heroic past is more than once projected as a yearning for a glorious future ’ (Schoina, 2021). In effect, then, this stanza is the first subtle instance of Byron repurposing or weaponizing Greek antiquity to project his hopes for Greek modernity. This is expanded later in the Canto:
The mountains look on Marathon — And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dream’d that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persians’ grave, I could not deem myself a slave.
Again, ‘staples’ of Greek antiquity are drawn upon: Marathon, Salamis, and Thermopylae are evoked. Yet this is done to urge modern subjugated Greeks to emulate their ancestors. The effect of this conjunction between Greek antiquity and Greek modernity can be most keenly felt when comparing the poetic tone of Don Juan to that of CHP : revolutionary exhortations in Don Juan versus wailing laments in CHP . This is not to say, however, that Byron’s previous vacillating support for the Greek cause was replaced in Don Juan by an ardent belief in it. Indeed, some may be quick to condemn Byron in the stanzas above for seemingly engaging in the same notion of an idealized concept of a free Greece based on its ancient past that this very essay contends he avoids. Such condemnation can be refuted, however. In typical fashion, Byron undermines the previous proclamations as the character who sings such declarations is a man who is ‘ paid to satirize or flatter ’ (Schoina, 2021) . Byron’s still ambivalent approach to the Greek cause in Don Juan , though, does not lessen the importance of the Ottava Rima and the coexistence of Greek antiquity and Greek modernity. Rather than submerging the
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