Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1920 — Byron Too Theatrical. [ARTICLE]

Byron Too Theatrical.

In its review of a recent work by the Italian critic, Emilio Cecchl, on English poets of the Nineteenth century, the London Telegraph says: “On the topic of the most famous controversy between European and British criticism —the greatness of Byron —Professor Cecchl takes very decidedly the British view, If Indeed he Is not carried so by his repugnance to the abundant alloy In Byron’s poetry, as in his life, as to make too little of the demoniac force which renders his anarchy impressive. Even that last expedition to Greece, which has commonly been felt to redeem many aberrations, has for our critic the fatal touch of the theater which the man and the poet so rarely escaped; and he compares him, much to his disadvantage, with that Genoese gentleman who rushed to embark with Garibaldi’s thousand In evening dress and a crush hat, and in this accouterment went to his death at Calatafiml — a De-Mussetllke figure, luminous with Its trusting smile, but touched with a purer spirit of religiosity than Byron could have achieved or understood.”