SOURCE: Stein, Atara. “‘I Loved Her and Destroyed Her’: Love and Narcissism in Byron's Manfred.” Philological Quarterly 69, no. 2 (spring 1990): 189-215.

In the following essay, Stein discusses the destructive qualities of Manfred's narcissism and assesses the character's culpability for Astarte's death.

In Manfred, Byron examines in detail the effects, both positive and negative, of the inevitable narcissism and egotism of the Romantic hero. Manfred is not only the center of his universe, he is his universe, with the surrounding environment and the other characters serving as aspects of his own dominating personality. This is particularly true of Astarte, his lost love; in fact, Byron's placing of the love affair in the distant past places her even more firmly within the province of Manfred's mind alone. Manfred's love for Astarte perfectly exemplifies the concept of love that Shelley presents in his short essay, “On Love”; Astarte is, for Manfred, an...