ABSTRACT
The eccentric collection of pets kept by George Gordon, Lord Byron has often been mentioned by critics. His interest in pet-keeping certainly extends just as far into his body of literature and begins to fall into a familiar pattern of disruption that shapes a key area of Romantic period animal conceptualization. Byron's beastly pets disrupt life's organic trajectory toward death, shifting focus instead toward taboo and transgression, toward that which is outside the possibilities of normalcy. Transgression thus frequently stands in for the move toward unfailing death and dissolution in his work. The epitaph inscribed on the dog's memorial, with the Second Canto of Byron's long poem, Don Juan, foregrounds a close connection between Romantic era animal representations and its humans. And though there are a variety of complementary understandings of criticism surrounding taboo and transgression, they can be read together as a critique of identity, both as markers of present identity and, paradoxically, its absence.
