Byron and Cosmopolitanism
Keywords:
Romanticism, cosmopolitanism, cultural identity, English poetry, Byron, George Gordon NoelAbstract
This paper considers to what extent contemporary discourses on cosmopolitanism might contribute to the reading of Byron as an expatriate poet, and, more generally, to a concept of Romantic cosmopolitanism. A close reading of the “Haidee episode” in cantos 2 to 4 of Byron’s Don Juan (1819–1824) focuses on languages-in-contact, foreign-language acquisition, and cultural differences with regard to environment, food, dress, and behaviour. Writing Don Juan as a British expatriate in southern Europe, Byron both thematizes and enacts cosmopolitan identity-construction in the context of multicultural encounters and asymmetrically intersecting communities. Recent cosmopolitan theory, especially that of K. Anthony Appiah, helps to explore themes of (mis)communication and cultural identity in Don Juan, and to relate Romantic cosmopolitanism to present-day globalized identities.References
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