SOURCE: Watkins, Daniel P. “Violence, Class Consciousness, and Ideology in Byron's History Plays.” ELH 48, no. 4 (winter 1981): 799-816.

In the following essay, Watkins argues that Byron's historical plays are more about societal issues than political themes.

It is a critical commonplace that Byron's history plays reverberate with political and topical overtones. It is seldom recognized, however, that these are not the major concerns of the plays, but only the outward trappings of deeper, more far-reaching considerations. The flurry of letters sent back to England during and after the composition of the plays assured Byron's friends that these dramas were not what people thought they were, and that the criticisms aimed at them would dissolve when people understood them better. As he told Murray when the tenor of criticism was unusually high-pitched even in those corners that had always and without question supported him: “I have a notion that if...