Copyright

William St Clair

Published On

2024-03-21

Page Range

pp. 37–64

Language

  • English

Print Length

28 pages

4. Poets and Travellers

  • William St Clair (author)
Chapter of: Byron and Trinity: Memorials, Marbles and Ruins(pp. 37–64)
Chapter 4, ‘Poets and Travellers’ (1998), explores various aspects of Lord Byron’s literary and political engagements, beginning by focusing on his satirical work ‘English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.’ William St Clair details the poem’s tumultuous publication history, marked by its rejection by London publishers, discussing the complexities of forgeries and controversy surrounding the poem. The chapter then shifts to Byron’s involvement with the Elgin Marbles and his critical stance on Lord Elgin’s actions, seen in his poem ‘The Curse of Minerva’. The discussion extends to Byron’s influential work Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, controversial for attacking Lord Elgin and addressing the removal of the Elgin Marbles. Byron's influence on the Philhellenic movement and his use of romantic poetry conventions, coupled with explanatory notes, contribute to ongoing debates about Greece's historical and cultural significance.

Contributors

William St Clair

(author)

William St Clair (1937–2021) worked as a civil servant in the Treasury for many years before proceeding to Fellowships at All Souls, Oxford, then Trinity College, Cambridge, and finally the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. His passion for history motivated him to publish Lord Elgin and the Marbles in 1967, a pioneering study of the controversial acquisition of the Parthenon Marbles. In the book’s third edition (1998), St Clair exposed how attempts to whiten the Greek relics by the British Museum led to their damage. Equally invested in the world of literature, St Clair published books and articles on the genre of British biography, on writers of the Romantic period, most notably Byron, and in his massive study, The Reading Nation, on the history of books. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1992. His belief in open-access publishing led him to co-found Open Book Publishers in 2008; he acted as its Chairman until his death.