The Byronic Berlioz:<i>Harold en Italie</i>and Beyond

Abstract This reexamination of the issue of Byronism in the works of Berlioz begins by exploring previously overlooked connections between Berlioz's Harold en Italie and Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Byron's technique of Romantic irony is shown to be operative on many levels in Berlioz's symphony, especially as a tool for the projection of an image of the self in an autobiographical work. Berlioz's fascination with aspects of Byron's personality and literary technique also resulted in artistic parallels that permeate many other of his works that have never previously been identified as “Byronic”; especially noteworthy in this regard is the possible modeling of the end of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust on Byron's Manfred, both of them works that deal autobiographically with the subject of guilt.