ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the workings of heroic transformation: the transformation of a character into a hero in the traditional, epic sense that of bearing arms and being involved in something that can be defined as a heroic contest in Sardanapalus and The Deformed Transformed. In The Deformed Transformed, Byron goes much further, ironizing the very idea that anybody, transformed or otherwise, can be heroized by any politics or ideology. Byrons approach to the heroic is a contested issue. On one hand, his association with the Carbonari and his later efforts in Greece testify to a personal engagement with and commitment to such a role. On the other hand, his treatment of traditional heroic topoi in Don Juan and other works would strongly suggest otherwise. The heroic game of thrones that is the game of empires and, more generally, history itself, is nicely summarized in the lines of Byrons Arbaces, the warlike puppet of the master-mover traitor, the high priest Beleses.