Biographic Relevance
Manfred was written shortly after the failure of Byron's marriage to Annabelle Millbanke, who most likely accused him of an incestuous relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh. At the time, he had exiled himself permanently from England and was living at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland. Most of Manfred was written on a tour through the Bernese Alps in September 1816. The third act was rewritten in February 1817 since Byron was not happy with its first version.
Manfred begins with citation of the phrase of Shakespeare's Hamlet : "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Manfred shows heavy influence by Goethe's Faust, which Byron most likely read in translation (although he claimed to have never read it); still, it is by no means a simple copy.
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“... whatever men do or know or experience can make sense only to the extent that it can be spoken about. There may be truths beyond speech, and they may be of great relevance to man in the singular, that is, to man in so far as he is not a political being, whatever else he may be. Men in the plural, that is, men in so far as they live and move and act in this world, can experience meaningfulness only because they can talk with and make sense to each other and to themselves.”
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