Manfred

Background

Byron wrote this "metaphysical drama", as he called it, after his marriage to Annabella Millbanke failed because of a scandal due to charges of sexual improprieties and an incestuous affair between Byron and his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. Attacked by the press and ostracised by London society, Byron fled England for Switzerland in 1816 and never returned. At the time, he was living at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland.

Because Manfred was written immediately after this, and because it regards a main character tortured by his own sense of guilt for an unmentionable offence, some critics consider it to be autobiographical, or even confessional. The unnamed but forbidden nature of Manfred's relationship to Astarte is believed to represent Byron's relationship with his half-sister Augusta.

Most of Manfred was written on a tour through the Bernese Alps in September 1816. The third act was rewritten in February 1817 since Byron was not happy with its first version.

Plot

Manfred is a Faustian noble living in the Bernese Alps. Internally tortured by some mysterious guilt, which has to do with the death of his most beloved, Astarte, he uses his mastery of language and spell-casting to summon seven spirits, from whom he seeks forgetfulness. The spirits, who rule the various components of the corporeal world, are unable to control past events and thus cannot grant Manfred's plea. For some time, fate prevents him from escaping his guilt through suicide.

At the end, Manfred dies, defying religious temptations of redemption from sin. Throughout the poem he succeeds in challenging all of the authoritative powers he faces, and chooses death over submitting to the powerful spirits. Manfred directs his final words to the Abbot, remarking, "Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die". "The unconquerable individual to the end, Manfred gives his soul to neither heaven nor hell, only to death."

Critique

Published in June 1817, Manfred has as its epigraph the famous phrase of Shakespeare's Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." It shows heavy influence by Goethe's Faust, which Byron most likely read in translation (although he claimed to have never read it).

Manfred has as its theme defiant humanism, represented by the hero’s refusal to bow to supernatural authority. Peter L. Thorslev, Jr. notes that Manfred conceals behind a Gothic exterior the tender heart of the Hero of Sensibility; but as a rebel, like Satan, Cain, and Prometheus, he embodies Romantic self-assertion.

In performance

Manfred was not originally intended for the stage; it was written to be a dramatic poem or, as Byron called it, a "metaphysical" drama.

Manfred has received much more attention on stage for its musical treatments by Tchaikovsky and Schumann than it has on its own dramatic terms. It was later famously played by Samuel Phelps. There are no recorded full stagings in Britain in the twentieth century, but readings are more popular, partly because of the difficulty of staging a play set in the Alps, partly because of the work's nature as a closet drama that was never actually intended for the stage in the first place. The exceptional size of the role of Manfred also makes the play difficult to cast. There was a production on BBC Radio 3 in 1988, however, which starred Ronald Pickup as Manfred. A new production, adapted and directed by Pauline Harris with original music composed and performed by Olly Fox and starring Joseph Millson as Manfred, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 8 January 2017 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Manfred's completion.

Scenes

Manfred in literature

The character Manfred was mentioned by Alexandre Dumas, père in his novel The Count of Monte Cristo, where the Count declares: "No, no, I wish to do away with that mysterious reputation that you have given me, my dear viscount; it is tiresome to be always acting Manfred. I wish my life to be free and open."

Indeed, the Count of Monte Cristo is quite similar to Manfred, in that he wants to keep his past a secret, feels superior to social conventions, and is following an agenda that runs counter to the social mores.

On page 61 of The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, Di Presso seems to refer (perhaps by accident) to Metzger as Manfred.

Manfred's oft-quoted speech from Act II Scene 1 which begins "Think'st thou existence doth depend on time?" is quoted on page 351 of The Masters of Solitude by Marvin Kaye and Parke Godwin.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky mentions the poem in Notes from Underground when the narrator states, "I received countless millions and immediately gave them away for the benefit of humanity, at the same moment confessing before the crowd all my infamies, which, of course, were not mere infamies, but also contained within them a wealth of 'the lofty and the beautiful' of something Manfred-like" (Dostoyevsky, page 57. Bantam Books 2005)

'In Memory of My Feelings', the poem by Frank O'Hara, includes the line "Manfred climbs to my nape,/ speaks, but I do not hear him,/ I'm too blue."

In Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, Byron is said to have written Manfred after meeting the magician Jonathan Strange and finding him most disagreeable. It is suggested that he wrote it because he was so disappointed with Strange that he created a magician more to his liking.

Manfred in ballet

In Byron's poem, the hero, a superhuman character, is doomed by fate to destroy those he loves. In vain he undertakes to find Astarte, his ideal spirit who alone has the power to assuage the feeling of guilt with which he is obsessed.

The argument for Manfred, in the choreographic version, lets the imagination run free using this basic theme to which references borrowed from other autographical poems by Byron have been associated. Inspiration has also been taken from the libretto that Tchaikovsky produced from the original work.

The characters and events forming the storyline come from the life of Byron himself. Therefore, we meet the loves and hates of his youth, his tireless quest for wisdom and peace, in friendship, in love, and in patriotic fervour." Programme for Manfred, Palais des Sports, 1979.