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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