ABSTRACT
In Germany, towards the end of the twelfth century, Reinmar von Hagenau even practised a refined Byronism in his cult of love-sorrow. The English reader will find an illuminating analysis in W. Rose's From Goethe to Byron. Byron's art was not merely hailed with enthusiasm in Greece, France, and Germany. The Byronic Hero, a reflection of Byron's own tortuous personality, is not, on first acquaintance, a very attractive figure. The sadistic element in Byron's work is large, and it assumes varied forms. Henri Taine, in his Histoire de Ia litterature anglaise, develops an explanation of Byronism that combines race with religion. The Left Wing theory of Byronism does however account, in part, for the social gulf that so often separates men of Byronic temperament. The Byronic Man rarely emerges from a milieu of comfortable, middle class stability. The endocrinologist views Byronism as a phase of the "pituitary personality". The economists and sociologists have also probed the mystery of Byronism.
