Empathy

• A rebellious, freedom-fighting Romantic poet, Byron’s reputation is the stuff of legend, his legacy assured and revered in the European literary canon.
• While the star of Byron’s literary fame rose, however, many fell by the wayside, cruelly discarded by the poet.
• It was the summer of 1816, dubbed the “year without a summer”“ thanks to a volcanic eruption in Indonesia.
• She later described it in her author’s introduction to the 1831 edition of her terrifying and groundbreaking novel.

A different perspective

• Viewed from the perspective of Claire Clairmont – but not narrated by her – the novel imagines and explores the feelings of the person who propelled Shelley and Mary Godwin to accompany her to Lake Geneva so that she could pursue her passion for Byron.
• She leaves Byron’s bed one morning, intoxicated by the illusion that: "She’s a lover of a Great One.
• Elsewhere, Byron calls her a handmaiden, making his feelings for her brutally clear by shaming her in front of the other guests.
• The story is narrated across three different decades of Clairmont’s life, with chapters on the three decades interspersed throughout the novel.

Life after Byron

• Byron of course looms large, first in his attempts to end Clairmont’s pregnancy, and then in his insistence that their daughter, Allegra, live with him, only then to send her away to school.
• The novel also portrays the absence of empathy between Godwin and Clairmont throughout their lives, by drawing from correspondence and journal entries.
• Byron and Shelley both died young, and in middle age, the mutual suspicion between the two surviving women persists.
• It explores the painful sacrifice and erasure of female suffering at the altar of more “heroic” male narratives of love, idealism and creation.

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Angela Wright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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