“Let Us Look At Them As They Are”: Lord Byron and Modern Greek Language, Literature, and Print Culture

Abstract

ABSTRACTOn his first trip to Greece from 1809 to 1811, Lord Byron became intensely preoccupied with Modern Greek language, literature, and print culture. This paper probes that interest by examining Byron's response to an 1810 Edinburgh Review article that begins as an even-handed analysis of Modern Greek literature but ends up disparaging Modern Greek writers and making the common claim that Modern Greek is a degenerated form of Ancient Greek. Although Byron's interest in Modern Greek literature and language remains a neglected aspect of the poet's work, this paper argues that his championing of Modern Greek literature gestures toward his broader support for a stronger intercultural relationship between Greece and Britain. Further, this paper contends that Byron's defense of Romaic (vernacular) Greek, which comes during a period when a Hellenic model of Greece is becoming increasingly popular throughout Europe, represents the poet's attempt to move away from solely classical conceptions of Greece and to familiarize British readers with a contemporary culture with which they were very little acquainted.