Analysis and Allusions
The poem's main merit lies in its comparison of English and Italian morals, arguing that the English aversion to adultery is mere hypocrisy in light of the probably shocking, but more honest custom of the Cavalier Servente in Italy. Also, it seeks to show that, in comparison to Byron's Oriental Tales of 1813, this more lax attitude towards morals may be more beneficial to all participants.
The poem manifests a number of typical Byronic qualities: it is digressive in its structure, for example, and it takes satiric jabs at targets familiar to readers of Byron, such as literary women and other poets (including Robert Southey, who appears as "Botherby"). As he does in major poems like Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan, Byron mixes fictional elements with elements of autobiography in Beppo.
Reputedly, Lady William Russell was the inspiration for " whose bloom could, after dancing, dare the dawn".
Read more about this topic: Beppo (poem)
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“Ask anyone committed to Marxist analysis how many angels on the head of a pin, and you will be asked in return to never mind the angels, tell me who controls the production of pins.”
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