Burns [_Farewell to Nancy_].
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NTRODUCTION TO THE _THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS_. Many poets--Wordsworth, for instance--have been conscious in their oldage that an interest attaches to the circumstances of the composition oftheir poems, and have furnished their friends and admirers withexplanatory notes. Byron recorded the _motif_ and occasion of the _Brideof Abydos_ while the poem was still in the press. It was written, hesays, to divert his mind, "to wring his thoughts from reality toimagination--from selfish regrets to vivid recollections" (_Diary_,December 5, 1813, _Letters_, ii. 361), "to distract his dreams from ..."(_Diary_, November 16) "for the sake of _employment_" (Letter to Moore,November 30, 1813). He had been staying during part of October andNovember at Aston Hall, Rotherham, with his friend James WedderburnWebster, and had fallen in love with his friend's wife, Lady Frances.From a brief note to his sister, dated November 5, we learn that he wasin a scrape, but in "no immediate peril," and from the lines, "Rememberhim, whom Passion's power" (_vide ante_, p. 67), we may infer that hehad sought safety in flight. The _Bride of Abydos_, or _Zuleika_, as itwas first entitled, was written early in November, "in four nights"(_Diary_, November 16), or in a week (Letter to Gifford, November12)--the reckoning goes for little--as a counter-irritant to the painand distress of _amour interrompu_. The confession or apology is eminently characteristic. Whilst the_Giaour_ was still in process of evolution, still "lengthening itsrattles," another Turkish poem is offered to the public, and the naturalexplanation, that the author is in vein, and can score another trick, isfelt to be inadequate and dishonouring--"To withdraw _myself_ from_myself_," he confides to his _Diary_(November 27), "has ever been mysole, my entire, my sincere motive for scribbling at all." It is more than probable that in his twenty-sixth year Byron had notattained to perfect self-knowledge, but there is no reason to questionhis sincerity. That Byron loved to surround himself with mystery, and todissociate himself from "the general," is true enough; but it does notfollow that at all times and under all circumstances he was insincere."Once a _poseur_ always a _poseur_" is a rough-and-ready formula notinvariably applicable even to a poet. But the _Bride of Abydos_ was a tonic as well as a styptic. Like the_Giaour_, it embodied a personal experience, and recalled "a countryreplete with the _darkest_ and _brightest_, but always the most _lively_colours of my memory" (_Diary_, December 5, 1813). In a letter to Galt (December 11, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 304,reprinted from _Life of Byron_, pp. 181, 182) Byron maintains that thefirst part of the _Bride_ was drawn from "observations" of his own,"from existence." He had, it would appear, intended to make the storyturn on the guilty love of a brother for a sister, a tragic incident oflife in a Harem, which had come under his notice during his travels inthe East, but "on second thoughts" had reflected that he lived "twocenturies at least too late for the subject," and that not even theauthority of the "finest works of the Greeks," or of Schiller (in the_Bride of Messina_), or of Alfieri (in _Mirra_), "in modern times,"would sanction the intrusion of the [Greek: miseto\n] into Englishliterature. The early drafts and variants of the MS. do not afford anyevidence of this alteration of the plot which, as Byron thought, wasdetrimental to the poem as a work of art, but the undoubted fact thatthe _Bride of Abydos_, as well as the _Giaour_, embody recollections ofactual scenes and incidents which had burnt themselves into the memoryof an eye-witness, accounts not only for the fervent heat at which theseTurkish tales were written, but for the extraordinary glamour which theythrew over contemporary readers, to whom the local colouring was new andattractive, and who were not out of conceit with "good MonsieurMelancholy." Byron was less dissatisfied with his second Turkish tale than he hadbeen with the _Giaour_. He apologizes for the rapidity with which it hadbeen composed--_stans pede in uno_--but he announced to Murray (November20) that "he was doing his best to beat the _Giaour_," and (November 29)he appraises the _Bride_ as "my first entire composition of any length." Moreover, he records (November 15), with evident gratification, theapproval of his friend Hodgson, "a very sincere and by no means (attimes) a flattering critic of mine," and modestly accepts the praise ofsuch masters of letters as "Mr. Canning," Hookham Frere, Heber, LordHolland, and of the traveller Edward Daniel Clarke. The _Bride of Abydos_ was advertised in the _Morning Chronicle,_ among"Books published this day," on November 29, 1813. It was reviewed byGeorge Agar Ellis in the _Quarterly Review_ of January, 1814 (vol. x. p.331), and, together with the _Corsair_, by Jeffrey in the _EdinburghReview_ of April, 1814 (vol. xxiii. p. 198). * * * * * NOTE TO THE MSS. OF _THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS_. The MSS. of the _Bride of Abydos_ are contained in a bound volume, andin two packets of loose sheets, numbering thirty-two in all, of whicheighteen represent additions, etc., to the First Canto; and fourteenadditions, etc., to the Second Canto. The bound volume consists of a rough copy and a fair copy of the firstdraft of the _Bride_; the fair copy beginning with the sixth stanza ofCanto I.
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