SOURCE: "Byron's Beppo: Digression and Contingency," in The Dalhousie Review, Vol. 73, Spring, 1993, pp. 18-33.

In the following examination of Beppo, Curtis concludes that Byron used digressions from the main plot or theme of his poems as a metaphor for life experience.

You ask me for the plan of Donny Johnny—I have no plan—I had no plan—but I had or have materials….—Why Man the Soul of such writing is it's licence?—at least the liberty of that licence if one likes—not that one should abuse it.

[Byron, letter to John Murray, 12 August 1819]

The Romantics valued narrative uncertainty, and Byron certainly was the rule rather than the exception. His brand of uncertainty was of a different order, however. Whereas the Ancient Mariner had "strange power of speech" or Wordsworth's Prelude prophesied "Something evermore about to be," Byron understood narrative uncertainty more as rhetorical liberty than...