Hypostases of the Byronic hero

The present thesis focuses on Byronic Hero, its defining characteristic features representing the literary hypostases correlated within one literary pattern that justifies the literary validity of a definite character typology, which is, on one hand, Romantic, and, on the other hand, representative for a particular literary sensibility. In relation to this major aim of our research, mention should be made of other particular objectives of the thesis, such as the research, diachronic and synchronic, of those thematic elements that marked the consolidation of the Byronic Hero as a literary tradition; the critical and theoretical evaluation of the literary system of the Byroniö Hero, showing its alliance to the general European and English Romanticism; the evaluation of particular hypostases of the Byronic Hero through the textual approach to a number of major literary works {Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Manfred, Cain, and Don Juan); and the emphasis placed on literary reception and continuity, and on the importance of the Byronic Hero as a type of Romantic Hero, and as a major literary concern during Romanticism and its influence on further writing. The theoretical and methodological foundation of our study focuses on those exigencies of the contemporary scientific research that find their applicability as interpretative premises and modalities (theoretical and critical) that would allow the exposition and argumentation of the Byronic Hero as a literary system in itself, having its own specific thematic and structural elements. The principles and methods of research applied in our study are those used and applied by traditional and modem literary studies, and represent a combination of methods considered according to the material under research and the purpose of the study: philological, comparative;! typological, biographical, as well as a number of methods and principles related to text analysis, intertextuaiism, thematology, literary theory. The t structure of the thesis corresponds to the proposed objectives and consists of an introductory section, followed by, four chapters, each chapter comprising a number of subchapters, which are followed by a section of conclusions, representing our final reflections, and by the bibliography of literary texts and critical studies.CONTENTS ÖZET vii ABSTRACT jx INTRODUCTION,.,, 13 CHAPTER ONE THE RISE OF ROMANTIC HERO IN ENGLISH LITERATURE 1.1 English Romantic Literature: Beginnings and Consolidation of a Literary Pattern 16 1.2 The Romantic Revival and me Romantic Individualism 19 1.3 The Romantic Hero and Its Modes of Textual Representation: Escapism and Rebelliousness 21 1.4 The Byronic Hero and the Byronic Contribution to the Rise of the English Romantic Hero 22 CHAPTER TWO THE INTERACTION OF REBELLIOUSNESS AND ESCAPISM AS THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMANTIC HERO IN CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 2.1 Author - Character - Narrator: Degrees of Identification and Separation » 25 2.2 Author - Character Identification as Expression of Romantic Rebelliousness 28 2.3 Author - Character Separation as Expression of Romantic Escapism..33 2.4 The Typology of Escapism in CMlde Harold's Pilgrimage as Expression of Authorial Misanthropy 36 t