Byron's published prose is pretty ranty--his letter style is a lot more fun. Crowley captures it superbly in The Evening Land.
Bloom ranked him 6 out of 6 among the Romantics in his early years; then last year he wrote this:
Shelley, a superb literary critic, considered Byron's Don Juan to be the great poem of the age, surpassing even Goethe and Wordsworth. Once I would not have agreed with Shelley, but moving toward the age of seventy-nine and having just reread Don Juan, I am persuaded. Unfinished and unfinishable, Byron's masterwork ought to be his monument. It is almost as large-minded and various as its outrageous creator, but will continue to be overshadowed by his legend.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-06-13 01:36 am (UTC)Bloom ranked him 6 out of 6 among the Romantics in his early years; then last year he wrote this:
Shelley, a superb literary critic, considered Byron's Don Juan to be the great poem of the age, surpassing even Goethe and Wordsworth. Once I would not have agreed with Shelley, but moving toward the age of seventy-nine and having just reread Don Juan, I am persuaded. Unfinished and unfinishable, Byron's masterwork ought to be his monument. It is almost as large-minded and various as its outrageous creator, but will continue to be overshadowed by his legend.