ABSTRACT
Most of Byron’s poem was probably written between 20 September and 4 October 1821. Byron sent the manuscript of the poem plus the prose preface to Murray with instructions to pass both on to John Hunt for publication in the first number of The Liberal, where the poem duly appeared on 15 October 1822, minus the preface and some minor corrections that Byron had made to the proofs. The Vision of Judgment is Byron’s response to Robert Southey’s apotheosis of the recently deceased George III, A Vision of Judgment. Like Dryden’s satire against Thomas Shadwell, Byron’s Vision dealt a blow to Southey’s reputation as a poet from which he has not yet fully recovered. In his preface to A Vision of Judgment Southey attacks modern poetry for its ‘horrors and mockery, lewdness and impiety’. From a position of moral purity English literature has degenerated, says Southey into an unprincipled quagmire.
