Byron and Greece: The Romantic Poet and the Birth of a Nation A Comparative Study of British Philhellenism and Greek Poetic Identity

This study presents a comparative analysis of the relationship between the British Romantic poet Lord Byron (1788–1824) and the Greek poetic tradition that he helped to shape. Byron’s involvement in the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) and his death at Missolonghi made him a hero in Greece, and his poetry became a touchstone for Greek intellectuals seeking to forge a modern national identity. Focusing on the reception of Byron in Greek literature, particularly in the work of the Alexandrian poet C. P. Cavafy (1863–1933), the study explores how Byron’s image was transformed from a foreign philhellene into a figure of Greek cultural memory. Through close reading of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Don Juan, and his Greek poems, alongside Cavafy’s “Byron” and other poems that engage with British Romanticism, the research reveals how two poets from different national traditions constructed a shared poetics of freedom, classical heritage, and national awakening. The study argues that the Byron-Greece connection offers a unique window into the cross-cultural transmission of Romanticism and the construction of national identity in the nineteenth century. By bringing Byron and Cavafy into sustained dialogue, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between British Romanticism and Greek literature, and offers a new framework for reading the literature of the Eastern Mediterranean as a field of cultural encounter. Drawing on postcolonial theory and reception studies, the study theorizes the Byron-Greece encounter as a case of “third space” cultural production—neither purely European nor purely Greek, but a hybrid formation in which both traditions are transformed. The study also examines the ways in which Byron’s image was transformed in Greek folk song, in the work of other Greek poets, and in the broader context of Greek national identity formation. Email: bo.xia@posteo.de