Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Daniel M. McVeigh

Critical Essay by Daniel M. McVeigh

SOURCE: McVeigh, Daniel M. “Manfred's Curse.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 22, no. 4 (autumn 1982): 601-12.

In the following essay, McVeigh examines the Incantation in Manfred's opening scene and suggests there are thematic implications for its incongruity with the rest of the play.

One of the curiosities of Romantic poetry is a mysterious incantation over the unconscious Manfred in the opening scene of Byron's best-known closet drama, condemning the hero's “guile”:

From thy false tears I did distil An essence which hath strength to kill; From thy own heart I then did wring The black blood in its blackest spring; From thy own smile I snatch'd the snake, For there it coil'd as in a brake; From thy own lip I drew the charm Which gave all these their chiefest harm; In proving every poison known, I found the strongest was thine own.

By thy cold breast and...
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