Byron 200

A performance by Jan Noble

with an introduction by Mark Roberts

 

 

Byron’s first review compared his work to ‘so much stagnant water.’ The poet hit back with satires and critiques before receiving almost overnight fame with the publication of ‘Childe Harold's Pilgrimage’. However scandal and debt would mean he spent seven years of self-imposed exile in Italy, its rivers, lakes and lagoons providing him with opportunity for reflection, contemplation and leisure. Byron, a famed and fabled swimmer, was never far from the water.

 

‘Byron 200’ is a mini, verse-drama written and performed by award-winning poet Jan Noble, a work in three acts that describe three occasions in which Byron took to the water. We witness his first, youthful ‘going in’, second, his legendary swimming of the Hellespont and finally his ‘bathing’ after Shelley’s cremation - an event the author contrives as the precursor to the burning of Byron’s memoirs in London and the poet’s own departure for Greece. 

 

This poetic investigation into a divisive figure offers a sympathetic critique of the poet with the benefit of a #MeToo lens. Byron is reimagined as a dandy libertine, a style icon wrestling with his disability, his sexuality, his title and privilege, ultimately finding both freedom and poetry out on the water.

 

If you are in Florence and would like to attend the lecture in person at the British Institute Library, please register here or send an email to bif@britishinstitute.it

The registration fee is 12 Euro per person. 

 

To join this lecture online, simply click on this link to register and receive the Zoom meeting invitation: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcld-Cvrj8pGNY419khZoFIMQius7Q0LDdB

The virtual doors will open at 18:00 Italian time on Wednesday 22nd May.  

 

A recording of the virtual lecture will be published on our YouTube channel. Clicking on the link above, you authorise the British Institute of Florence to use your image, name and comments.

 

There is no charge to attend the event on Zoom, but we ask you to consider making a donation to support the Institute and its beautiful library if you wish to attend an event.

 

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This lecture is sponsored by David DeWitte