ABSTRACT
In France, the line commenced by Rousseau had resulted in a national gallery of heroes representing world-sorrow: Saint-Preux, Rene, Obermann and Adolphe. There is more sentimental world-sorrow in the French hero than in the Byronic type, whose predominant features are mystery and defiance. The progenitor of the Byronic hero is thus, on the basis of discoveries made in following the line Hamlet-Manfred-Montoni-Bethlem Gabor with their related subordinate characters, a purely English literary type, and even during its development its enrichment from alien sources is doubtful. The poem plays therefore little part in the development of the Byronic hero. The Byronic hero of the poem, Selim, is correspondingly of more delicate texture and more lyrical than the Giaour, even though the defiance of his glance does cow his father. His true character emerges, however, at the threat to deprive him of his beloved, his “sister” Zuleika.
