ABSTRACT
In England, Byron is regarded to-day as a legend rather than as a major poet; but it would seem that, as in Germany, the discriminating still feel the vitality of his influence. This chapter reviews the chief differences between the German and the English approach to Byronism—differences which are ultimately explicable, only on the basis of national character. Comparisons between English and German Byronic literature in the early phases prior to 1850, are largely nugatory. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a wide gulf began to separate English and German Byronism. Just as German Naturalists of short vision confused the latter-day descendant of the Byronic Hero with the embryo of the New Man, so they were tempted to identify the Fatal Woman with the emancipated woman. For all the lapses of the pseudo-Naturalists, it would be wrong to assume that modern German Byronic literature is everywhere inferior to the English.
