'Burns and Byron in Scottish, British and European Romanticism' The Byron Centre, University of Manchester 4–5 December 2010

Abstract

In light of the fact that most of Western Europe had been brought to a standstill in the week immediately prior to the conference, it is a miracle that so many participants actually managed to get to Manchester at all. Interestingly, those who failed the snow challenge were all from other parts of the UK - a triumph for UK public transport and public services! The conference organisers, Gerry Carruthers (Glasgow) and Alan Rawes (Manchester), seemed quite unfazed by the impact of the weather, although we suspect that they were secretly more than a little worried about whether anyone would still be able to make it. This took nothing away from the enthusiasm of the participants and rather promoted a sense of victory over the snow. Located in the historic Samuel Alexander Building, the conference was a collaboration between The Byron Centre at the University of Manchester and the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow. It opened on Saturday morning with the first plenary, given by Professor Murray Pittock (Glasgow) and entitled 'The Real Language of Men: fa's speerin?', which offered a lucid close reading of, among other texts, Burns's 'To a Mouse' and 'To a Louse', focusing on their use of idiolects and dialects from a historical and political perspective, and on the particular power of the poems' language. After a coffee break, the first set of parallel sessions commenced. In 'Burns, Byron and Scotland', chaired by Gerry Carruthers, Colin Clark (Charles, Prague) presented his paper, 'Hell's Hot Jurisdiction: Byron, Burns and the Poetics of Transgression and Transcendence'. This unravelled the complexities of the Calvinist literary legacy in various well-known works by Burns and Byron. Inspired by the portraits of Burns and Scott (both freemasons) and Byron and Shakespeare (neither normally linked with freemasonry) hanging in the lodge room of Lodge Canongate Kilwinning, Andrew Prescott (Glasgow) then explored some interesting connections between Burns and Byron and freemasonry in his wide-ranging paper, 'Annexing Reputation: the Masonic Reputations of Byron and Burns'. The other parallel session, 'Burns and Byron in British Romanticism', chaired by Alan Rawes, was marked by the first arctic-weather absence, that of Will Bowers (Oxford), whose paper would have been on 'Byron, Hunt and the Genesis of the Italian Fashion'. Peter Francev (Mount San Antonio College) was present, and spoke on 'Byron and the Mistress Poem', discussing the question of whether Teresa Guiccioli was or was not a source of inspiration for Byron's poetry, looking closely at works such as 'Stanzas to the Po', 'Stornelli' and 'The Prophecy of Dante'. The session then closed with Adam White (Manchester), whose paper, 'Burns, Byron and John Clare', argued that Clare drew on the lyric poetry of Burns and Byron to construct a haunting, complex and mysterious female figure through which to imaginatively explore farflung, exotic places. The second plenary speaker of the day, Brean Hammond (Nottingham), scheduled for after lunch, was defeated by the Nottinghamshire snow, but his paper was not. It was very competently delivered by Alan Rawes. Entitled 'The Ethical Turn in Literary Criticism: Burns and Byron', Hammond's paper examined the issue of ethical reading in relation to the problematic cases of Burns and Byron - two poets who have often been seen as unethical in both their lives and work. To explore notions of the performativity of the self and its aversiveness, and how these fit with the idea of poetic truth in both Burns and Byron, Hammond gave an insightful analysis of 'Ae Fond Kiss' and 'So We'll Go No More A-Roving', to the musical accompaniment of Leonard Cohen's husky rendering of the latter. The afternoon tea and coffee break was followed by two more parallel sessions: one dealing with 'Burns, Byron and Romantic Celebrity' and the other with 'Burns, Byron and other European Writers'. In the Romantic celebrity session, chaired by Murray Pittock, Hannah Doherty (Stanford) opened with a paper on 'Byronic Advertising: Selling Romanticism in the Early Nineteenth Century', which explored the many ways in which Byron's name was put to use for publicity purposes during the latter part of his life, highlighting especially the political associations evoked by its eclectic use. …