Essays in Romanticism

Abstract

This essay examines the international Romantic sociability that was cultivated around Holland House, with a specific focus on Staël’s and Foscolo’s London experience. It also investigates Byron’s engagement with Holland House and re-reads his two poems English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1807-8; published 1809) and The Bride of Abydos: A Turkish Tale (1813) as featuring a more cosmopolitan outlook than has been previously acknowledged, particularly because they both shed light on Lord Holland, his entourage, and discourses around the Ionian and the Spanish Questions which were at the heart of Holland House’s discussions. It is the cosmopolitan dimension rotating around Holland House, and the influence of both Staël and Foscolo, that account for Byron’s attentive concern with European social and political debates.