ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes Byron’s complex reaction to the rise of the “Cockney” poets. Following the publication of Rimini, a poem formally dedicated to Byron, the poet became inevitably linked with Hunt in critical discussions. After tracing depictions of the Byron-Hunt friendship in the Romantic reviews and literary magazines, this chapter looks at Byron’s reading of Hunt’s Foliage, a poetical volume that publicly celebrated Hunt’s widening circle of “Cockney” friends. A discussion of the critical prose writings that Byron produced, in part, in response to Hunt’s “Cockney School“ of poetry provides fresh insights into the state of the Byron-Hunt friendship during the period of Byron’s exile from England.
