ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the posit that Eliot used Byron as a code to maintain certain secrets that characters in Felix Holt, The Radical would like to keep hidden; however, Byron's cultural cache ironically reveals these secrets to the reading audience. Elfenbein treats Byron as a cultural institution and a known marketplace commodity, which encouraged these authors to assert their own Victorianism. George Eliot was disgusted by the nature of the sexual scandal itself rather than by Stowe's attacks on Byron's reputation. As Felix Holt demonstrates, in 1866, Eliot was hardly at the forefront of Byronic defenses, which only begs the question of why she would include direct references to him at two important times: first, during the wasteland of Byron texts, and secondly, at such a crucial point in the novel, the first introduction of the title character to his future wife.
