Byron: Consistency, Change, and the Greek War

Abstract

The satirical Dedication of Don Juan to Robert Southey was never published in Byron’s lifetime. T. S. Eliot thought it “one of the most exhilarating pieces of abuse in the language.”² But since the poem was to appear anonymously, Byron agreed to withdraw the Dedication, writing to his publisher, John Murray, on May 6, 1819: “I won’t attack the dog [Southey] so fiercely without putting my name.”³ The above lines, ironically poised (“I make no flattering assertions”), constitute a self-consciously parodic affirmation of political consistency that is yet not without a sense of pride. Buff and blue, the colors of Washington’s army, were associated in England with the Whig Club and the cover of the Edinburgh Review, and they signal the poet’s claim to an unchanging political affiliation, contrasted with what he saw as the political treachery of Southey. The lines, written from Byron’s self-imposed exile in Venice, thus hint both at the internationalism of a revolutionary movement and the parochialism of a national politics.

Meantime, Sir Laureate, I proceed to dedicate

In honest, simple verse, this song to you;

And if in flattering strains I do not predicate,

’Tis that I still retain my “buff and blue.”

(Don Juan, Dedication, lines 129–32)¹