ABSTRACT
The Triumph of Life, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, paradoxically express the newly found capacity of poetry to represent the temporality of history, art and individual existence but also its incapacity to create a perfect and harmonious form. Byron's poetry does not aim at formal perfection. It tends to capture the relations of ideal values fundamental to literary forms and cultural formations to the rapidly changing value awareness of the present time. As a consequence, fragments in Byron's poetry testify not only to the transitory nature of values but also to the temporality and even randomness of language. The subversive political and social potential of fragmentation is undercut by the deconstructive features of Byron's poetry. Byron's fragmentary tale contrasts two historical perspectives and discards both. The first is based on the historical framework. The second is formed by the ironically represented perspective of Romantic Hellenism.
