Date of Publication: 2008-12-01

Byron and Orientalism sets out to examine this thesis. Based on a conference held in 2005 at Nottingham Trent University, it looks at Byron’s knowledge of the East, and of its religions in particular, in greater detail than ever before.

Essays are included on Byron’s Turkish Tales, Edward Said’s attitude to Byron, Byron’s version of Islam, Byron’s Hebrew Melodies, and Byron’s influence on the orientalist writings of Pushkin and Lermontov. There is a massive introduction, setting Byron’s eastern poetry in the contexts both of European literature, English literature, and the poet’s own confused and disorientated existence.

Dr Peter Cochran is the editor of the Newstead Byron Society Review and of the editions of Byron’s major works on the website of the International Byron Society. He has lectured on Byron in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Newstead, Glasgow, Liverpool, Versailles, Monckton, Messolonghi, Dephi, Gdansk, Salzburg, Yerevan and New York, and published numerous articles on the poet. He is author of the Byron entry in the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, and of the entries on J.C.Hobhouse and E.J.Trelawny for the new DNB

The topic of 'Byron and Orientalism' offers rich potential, and Peter Cochrane brings a great wealth of expertise to bear on the subject in his substantial contributions to this new volume. Byron and Orietalism contains much to reward the attention of Byron scholars.

James Watt - The Byron Journal