English 304 British Literature II News

A new biography of Lady Caroline Lamb has been published.  Lamb acquired some measure of fame for her love affair with Lord Byron and later wrote some well-received novels.  What follows is a Daily Express excerpt from the biography.

Daily Express, UK
October 31, 2000

Lady Caroline Lamb was best known for her torrid affair with Lord Byron, for whom she coined the phrase 'mad, bad and dangerous to know'. Here, in an exclusive extract from the first new biography for nearly 30 years by SUSAN NORMINGTON, we discover how Caroline's obsession with her lover nearly destroyed her life.

Lady Caroline Lamb was born in 1785, the third child of four and only daughter of the third Earl Bessborough and his wife Lady Henrietta, daughter of the first Earl Spencer. Because her mother suffered ill health, Caroline was brought up mainly by her grandmother, the redoubtable Countess Spencer, at Devonshire House - the centre of Whig politics -
under the chaperonage of her aunt, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

At 17, she married William Lamb, the second son of Lord Melbourne and his ambitious wife Lady Melbourne, who were anxious for their son to make a powerful match. The start of their married life was idyllic. Caroline wanted to spend every waking moment with William, "the most handsomest man alive", and at first he was content. But later, as his political ambitions developed, he spent less time with her and more trying to make his way in Parliament. He was first elected as an MP for Leominster in 1806. Their marriage began to fray and although she twice became pregnant, she bore only one child that lived. He was mentally defective.

Caroline was 27 when she read Childe Harolde, a poem by Gordon, Lord Byron. She immediately wrote him a fan letter. Byron decided not to reply but when he discovered that the writer was a "fine young woman, distinguished for eccentric notions" he changed his mind.

Childe Harolde had spawned extravagant rumours about Byron. He was a man who "had been educated nobody knows how, having passed his time in a foreign country, nobody knows where, from which he was driven, it seems, by his crimes". No one believed the poet when he denied basing Childe Harolde's adventures on his own exploits; instead they fell over themselves to be introduced. "If he is as ugly as Aesop I must see him," said Caroline.

Byron was just 23 and his good looks and famous "underlook" (achieved by lowering his head and raising his beautiful eyes) sent shivers up the spines of matrons and young girls alike. On their first encounter Caroline behaved coolly but a few days later she invited him to visit her at her home, Melbourne House. "From that moment for more than nine months, he almost lived at Melbourne House."

Caroline was not the type of woman the poet normally admired (big, brown, buxom with dark, "antelope" eyes). She was small, thin, with reddish hair and a gamine charm which she sometimes emphasised by wearing one of her
page's uniforms. Caroline's innocence, affection and enthusiasm enchanted Byron and she was spellbound by his stories. He described his childhood in Aberdeen, his days at school and at Cambridge, how he travelled across Spain to Malta, his meeting with Ali Pasha, the fat, bearded despotic ruler of most of what is modern Greece, how he was shipwrecked and hid in the mountains in fear of bandits, how a widow had tried to sell him one of her three beautiful daughters. He had swum the Hellespont, fallen dangerously ill and was nursed back to life by his servant. He had rescued a girl, sewn in a sack, from drowning.

His apparent indifference to his success also intrigued Caroline while his attention flattered her. He enjoyed being feted by the daughter of an earl. His previous experiences with women had been confined to prostitutes, schoolgirls, maids and landladies' daughters. She could not hide her delight in their friendship. "We went about everywhere together.
I grew to love him better than virtue, religion."

Caroline defied convention by travelling with him, unchaperoned. During one journey, the poet pressed her hand to his heart so she could feel it beat and asked her to kiss him. She hesitated at first but then "it was more than I could prevent from that moment - you drew me to you like a magnet... Never while life beats in this heart shall I forget you."

At first Byron was flattered and he compared her overwhelming love to an erupting volcano which poured lava through her veins. But the animal magnetism that had drawn them together was not enough to keep the peace as they jostled for the limelight. Lady Morgan observed that the only subject which really interested and animated Caroline was
herself and Byron's favourite was himself, so they did not have to be together long before "he would grow moody and she fretful".

Byron became pathologically envious of every man Caroline had ever shown any interest in and tried to force her to say she loved him more than William. When she refused "he went into such a furious passion and swore at me... and then he did abuse me and scorn me and mock me." Caroline was even more passionate. In an early letter to Byron, she "assured him that if he was in want of money, all her jewels were at his service."

Meanwhile, William ignored Caroline's antics. He understood her and was willing to wait until the violent attachment had burnt itself out. He was also well aware that part of Caroline's charm in Byron's eyes was her high position in society. William's relaxed attitude infuriated Caroline. Although there had been a great deal of talk, Caroline had not yet done anything to bar herself from polite society. But she was obsessed. His voice, she said, made her "heart bleed and men who never feel cry". Once, when she saw him lean over another woman at a reception, she bit through the rim of her wine glass in agitation.

Caroline suspected Byron's interest was flagging and began to stalk him. He complained to Lady Melbourne that she watched him and had invaded his rooms "terrier-like", disguised as a "cabman". On June 4, 1812 the poet went to his home, Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire. Six days later, a letter arrived, delivered by a page suspected of being Caroline in disguise. By the end of June, the affair had reached crisis point. The grand romance had become one-sided, killed by Caroline's demands, daily love letters and displays of jealousy.

All Byron wanted was peace, "for I hate scenes and am of an indolent disposition". Despite her family's despair, Caroline continued to haunt the places Byron frequented. Once, she entered his lodgings dressed as a cabman and stayed for hours threatening to kill herself, to the excitement of a crowd gathered outside. On another occasion she slipped through his front door and hid in the waiting room, waylaying him on his return. Byron was infuriated. A friend reported: "He never was so much in love with anyone but she teased him to death and made him wretched." To avoid Caroline, Byron refused invitations to the theatre, parties and dinner. She wrote daily, sometimes hourly, once sending him a lock of her pubic hair. When her father-in-law remonstrated with her, she ran away from home, leaving her family to spend a day searching. Eventually, she was found in the home of a surgeon, who had taken her in believing her to have been abandoned. The following morning, her family were ready to despatch her to Ireland. But Caroline had a trump card, announcing that she was pregnant and that the journey would cause a miscarriage. Overcome by stress as her daughter threatened to see Byron, her mother suffered a minor stroke. Caroline tried to appease her parents but would not give up her campaign to see Byron. The situation was becoming farcical. Even the Prince Regent, no slouch when it came to scandals, was surprised.

The poet had only stayed in London because he was waiting for Newstead Abbey to be auctioned. When it was sold on August 14, he arranged to leave town and agreed to a last meeting with Caroline. Byron dreaded all emotional scenes but managed to deflect this one by promising tearfully to follow her to Ireland. Expecting to see him soon, Caroline left happily. Her pregnancy was not mentioned again. As soon as she had gone, though, Byron decided to end the tormented affair and find a "golden dolly" to bankroll him. To keep her in Ireland, he continued to "write her the greatest absurdities to keep her 'gay'".

As the families conspired to keep her away from him, her letters became increasingly distraught. Meanwhile, Byron began an affair with Lady Oxford. When Caroline heard of it, she tried to slash her wrists, then rained threatening letters on Byron and his lover. "You have told me how foreign women revenge," she threatened Byron. "I will show you how an
English woman can." She ordered a large bonfire to be built with a straw effigy of Byron on top and invited local children to dance around the pyre.

Yet Caroline still refused to believe the affair was over. In the new year, she continued the guerrilla war of letters and forged one to obtain a portrait of Byron from his publishers. A year later she was still making furtive visits to his home, when she thought he was out, talking her way in at the servants' entrance. HE COMPLAINED: "I can't throw her out of the window but if there is one human being whom I do utterly detest and abhor, it is she." In 1814, the poet became engaged to heiress Annabella Milbanke. Caroline wrote him one last, tear-stained letter. "I loved you as no woman ever could love because I am not like them - but more like a beast who sees no crime in loving and following its master - you became such to me - master of my soul." When Byron and Annabella moved into their marital home the following year, Caroline was forced to pay respects. "Byron seemed agitated. His hand was cold but he seemed kind. This was the last time upon this earth I ever met him," she said.

Byron's marriage was unhappy from the start and only two years later, he and Annabella separated. Determined to destroy Byron, Caroline offered to feed Annabella damaging information that would help her gain custody of their daughter Ada. She told Annabella that Byron had committed incest with his sister, Augusta, and indulged in homosexual acts.

The same year Caroline wrote a bestselling satirical novel, Glenarvon, an "apology" to Byron. In fact, its dark portrait of the poet put the final nail in the coffin of her marriage to William. She was sent from London in disgrace. By this time, Byron was in Europe, never to return to England.

Caroline wrote two more novels and she and William separated for good in 1825, when she was 40. She died three years later, with William at her bedside. He went on to become Lord Melbourne and then Queen Victoria's first Prime Minister. Many years after her death he remarked: "In spite of all, she was more to me than anyone ever was or ever will be." His eyes would fill with tears at the mention of her name and he was heard to mutter: "Shall we meet? Shall we meet in another world?"

Extract by JULIA LLEWELLYN SMITH.

Lady Caroline Lamb, by Susan Normington, is published by House Of Stratus, price 18.99. To order a copy for the special price of 15.99 + 99p call the Express Bookshop on 0870 901 9101.

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Recently, on the Romanticism list-serv, NASSR-L, an interesting conversation has taken place regarding Keats' choice of "stout Cortez" as the named discoverer in "On First Reading Chapman's Homer."  I thought that I'd share it with you.  The initial question from Jennifer Michael appears first, followed by Charles Rzepka's reply.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: J. Michael [mailto:jmichael@SEWANEE.EDU]
> Sent: Monday, October 02, 2000 4:16 PM
> To: NASSR-L@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU
> Subject: Cortez and Balboa
>
> Something tells me we've been over this before, but I can't find it in my
> (admittedly erratic) personal archives.
>
> The standard footnote to Keats's sonnet "On First Looking Into Chapman's
> Homer" says that Keats mistakenly names Cortez in line 11 when he really
> means Balboa.  Today in class, a student said he had "read somewhere" that
> perhaps Keats *meant* Cortez:  that just as Cortez wasn't the first to see
> the Pacific, Keats isn't the first to read Homer, but the effect is still
> overwhelming.  Can anyone point me to the relevant source?  And does anyone
> care to comment?
>
> Thanks,
> Jennifer Michael
> University of the South
 

Subject: Re: Cortez and Balboa
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 21:41:37 -0400
From: Charles Rzepka <crzepka@BU.EDU>
Reply-To: North American Society for the Study of Romanticism <NASSR-L@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU>
To:  NASSR-L@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU

Ken, Ian, and others--

Jerome McGann does not make this point [about Keats' choosing to name
Cortez rather than Balboa in order to emphasize that his own "second
discovery" is no less valuable] at all--in fact, his point is quite
otherwise.  I've just completed an article on this subject, which has been
accepted for the Keats-Shelley Journal 2002 edition (right--so just sit
tight!), in which I review the history of this (entirely correct) reading,
answer the "error" argument on more comprehensive formal and historical
grounds, marshall recent work in Keats studies that help confirm "Cortez",
and examine the genesis and reception history of the poem, and New
Historicism's inadequate--even counter-intuitive--response to the
Cortez/Balboa crux.  My position is that "Cortez" is absolutely correct.
If anyone would like more details (references, etc.) I'd be glad to
respond to individual queries.  The most complete (but almost completely
ignored) defense of Keats's choice to date has been C. V. Wicker,
"Cortez--Not Balboa," College English 17 (1956): 383-387.  Susan Wolfson
was the last to cite this argument (in Questioning Presence, 1986), but it
has occurred to others independently. (Thanks, Ian, for the lead on Fry's
essay--I'll have to search it out.)  I'd go into the matter in more
detail, but feel I should not be eviscerating my contribution to KSJ in
bits and pieces before publication.

However, with respect to McGann's take on the sonnet, far from arguing in
favor of Cortez, he assumes Keats in fact made a blatant, indeed,
ludicrous error, but that it's all part of the challenge to dominant
culture mounted by Keats's refreshing and wide-ranging "adolescent"
ignorance. I quote in part:

"Among schoolchildren Keats would have been told, correctly, that Balboa,
not Cortez, discovered the Pacific Ocean.  Among scholars, on the other
hand, the error is casually glossed as trivially factual, the result of a
confused set of literary memories.  But the wild surmise of the poem, its
poetic success, comes exactly from its having gotten lost.  We shouldn't
ignore or try to explain away its confusions; better far to follow their
inviting nonsense and (il)ogic, and try to explain them." (page 122)

Arguing throughout my essay that Keats really meant what he wrote--Cortez,
the BELATED arriviste at the shores of the Pacific, not Balboa, the prior
(like Chapman) discoverer)--I respond (in part) as follows:

[My text:] Whereas Levinson would read the contained badness of Keats's
sonnet as indicative of its alienated ideological challenge to high
culture, McGann would fit Keats's "nonsense" into an expansive
refurbishing of the poetics of sensibility, "the naive-and-sentimental
heritage bequeathed to all later culture by the eighteenth century (2)."
What is disturbing about McGann's interpretation [among other things. . .
is his] patronizing tone, which pre-empts any serious discussion of the
poem:

[McGann:]"Cortez standing silent on the peak in Darien: the image is at
once ludicrous and wonderful, like everything else in the poem. . . .
The poem transports us to the most forbidden world of all--the Rosebud
world of adolescence, barred out more securely by the adult consciousness
. . . than perhaps any other realm has ever been.  The poem's absurd error
is the sign that it has pledged its allegiance to what would mortally
embarrass a grown-up consciousness.  (And so scholarship, than which
nothing else is more grown up, hastens to explain the error away.)" (123)

[My text:]
        In order to take issue with this subornation of critical
delinquency, one must run the risk of that embarrassment of which McGann
seems to feel Keats would mercifully relieve us: the embarrassment of
speaking like a "grown up" and thereby destroying, in curmudgeonly
fashion, the childlike frisson available to all who will just shut their
eyes to errors of fact and think good thoughts.  Indeed, if anyone is
trying to "explain . . . away" Keats's schoolboy error here, it is McGann,
because he clearly thinks it is, from every grown up, scholarly point of
view, indefensible.  Thus, what he fears scholarship can only condemn and
dismiss, McGann would salvage by means of infantilization.

{End of excerpt from my essay.}

My point throughout the essay is that Keats's choice of Cortez is not only
defensible from a scholarly point of view, but is the only logical choice,
formally as well as historically, when ALL the facts of Keats's life and
art are considered.

Chuck Rzepka