Byron himself says it has no plot, but he kept teasing his
questioners with mysterious hints, e.g. "It was the Staubbach and the
Jungfrau, and something else more than Faustus, which made me write
_Manfred_;" and of one of his critics he says to Murray, "It had a better
origin than he can devise or divine, for the soul of him." In any case
most methods of reading between its lines would, if similarly applied,
convict Sophocles, Schiller, and Shelley of incest, Shakespeare of murder,
Milton of blasphemy, Scott of forgery, Marlowe and Goethe of compacts with
the devil. Byron was no dramatist, but he had wit enough to vary at least
the circumstances of his projected personality. The memories of both
Fausts--the Elizabethan and the German--mingle, in the pages of this
piece, with shadows of the author's life; but to these it never gives, nor
could be intended to give, any substantial form.
_Manfred_ is a chaos of pictures, suggested by the scenery of
Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald, half animated by vague personifications and
sensational narrative. Like _Harold_, and Scott's _Marmion_, it just
misses being a great poem.
Pages:
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183