Performing the Promethean Self in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage III–IV and Cain

Abstract

In Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage III–IV and Cain , Byron, as Nietzsche remarks, outlines an “übermenschlich” sense of Promethean identity in his confrontation of the tragedy of poetry. The travel narrative of Harold, the tragic history of Venice, and Cain’s pursuit of divine status each fictionalize a visionary mode in which Byron illustrates a fragmentary identity tortured by poetic achievement. The series of moral riddles on knowledge, poetry, and truth that Byron navigates in these poems move from the artistic sphere of his career to an existential discourse on whether Byron the Promethean poet can outdo mortality.