The author examines the evolution of Byron's poetry from Childe Harold I and II through to the composition of Beppo. Beginning with a close reading of the sustained poetic experimentation that constitutes Childe Harold I and II, he charts the progress of that experimentation in the Tales where Byron's poetry gets entrenched in a tragic idiom.

Contents: Introduction; 'Mixed in one mighty scene with varied beauty glow'; 'The frame of things disjoint'; 'A narrow escape into faith'; 'Tears and tortures, and the touch of joy'; 'To increase our power increasing thine'; A 'more beloved existence'; Bibliography; Index.

Dr Alan Rawes is Senior Lecturer in Romanticism at The University of Manchester.