The Prophecy of Dante: Byron and the Poet as a Prophet

This paper analyzes the connections between the Poet and the Prophet in Lord Byron's Poetics, building a critical approach to two characters: Dante, the hero of the poem The Prophecy of Dante (1821), and the trimmer-poet represented in Don Juan (1819). Our point of departure is the contrast bet...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Botelho, Alice Vieira
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2024
Country:Brasil
Institution:Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC)
Repository:Ilha do Desterro
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:periodicos.ufsc.br:article/100284
Online Access:https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/100284
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Byron
Poética
Poeta
Profeta
Poetics
Poet
Prophet
Description
Summary:This paper analyzes the connections between the Poet and the Prophet in Lord Byron's Poetics, building a critical approach to two characters: Dante, the hero of the poem The Prophecy of Dante (1821), and the trimmer-poet represented in Don Juan (1819). Our point of departure is the contrast between Dante's prophetic image and the parodic representation of the Poet in Don Juan. We propose that, in spite of Byron's criticism of the Poet-Prophet archetype and his refusal to the authoritarian rhetorical model of the Old Testament, Byron's work creates a familiarity between poetry's language and biblical prophecy, at least in a philosophical level: the pursuit for a correspondence between words and things.