Byron's Manfred

[poliphilo]

I know Byron didn't like to think of himself as a romantic but this is the acme of romanticism- a great man with a horrific secret, more spooks than the average funhouse and mountains, mountains, mountains.

 It comes out of the same summer workshop (on the shores of Lake Leman) that produced Frankenstein.

(If only Frankenstein was this good!)

The occult revival starts here. With Byron and his gang so crazy for magic (though he knew nothing about it) it's no wonder his grandchildren (his spiritual descendants) all wanted to be magicians. 

But that's a side excursion- one we might have spared ourselves. If we'd read Byron more attentively we'd have learned  that the drugs don't work. We're on the main line here. The one from nowhere to nowhere. E.A. Poe and Samuel Beckett are waiting just ahead.

Comments

Re: E.A. Poe and Samuel Beckett are waiting just ahead.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

He lived to be 96 and was still drinking with his Irish friends - to the great dismay of his wife.
Of course the work of any artist is open to interpretation, I agree, but I have chosen to regard it as life affirming - He was Irish after all.