Call for Papers: "Byron and Disability"
Byron Society Panel
Convention of the Modern Language Association
Chicago, 1999
The importance of Byron's clubfoot was a commonplace of his
nineteenth-century reception. In 1812, Keppel Craven wrote that he had
heard that Byron planned "to sell everything he possesses in England and
retire into Greece, where, I suppose, he thinks no one will take notice of
his lameness--for that seems to be his great quarrel with the whole world."
Later in _Daniel Deronda_, George Eliot unflatteringly described the
effect of Byron's disability on his personality: "The sense of entailed
disadvantage--the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a
restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centred,
unloving nature into an Ishmaelite." Yet twentieth-century critics have
been far more comfortable talking about other aspects of Byron's body, such
as his weight or his sexuality, than about his disability. The goal of
this panel is to open up the topic of Byron's disability and to examine
various ways of discussing its relevance to his life and work.
Please submit 2-page abstracts or completed papers by March 15 to
Andrew Elfenbein, Dept. of English, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
FAX: 612-624-8228
Andrew Elfenbein
Associate Professor
Department of English
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Phone: 612-824-6083
Fax: 612-824-8228
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
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