1. 'At Once Above -- Beneath Her Sex': The Heroine in Male-authored Regency Verse Romance -- 2. 'A Soulless Toy for Tyrant's Lust?': The Heroine as Passive Victim -- 3. 'The Firmness of a Female Hand': The Active Heroines of the Tales -- 4. 'Quiet Cruising o'er the Ocean Woman': Byron's Don Juan and the Woman Question -- 5. 'Each Was Radiant in Her Proper Sphere': Byron's Theory of Repression from Greece to the 'Gynocrasy' -- 6. 'Why, What Is Virtue If It Needs a Victim?': Heroic Heroines in Regency Drama -- 7. 'My Hope Was to Bring Forth Heroes': The Fostering of Masculine Virtu by the Stoical Heroines of the Political Plays -- 8. 'Daughters of Earth': The Divided Self and the Heroines of the Mythological Dramas
Summary
A feminist critique of Lord Byron's depiction of women. The heroines of his narrative and dramatic verse are considered in the light of the early 19th-century debate on the role of woman in society and are compared with the heroines of Byron's contemporaries
Analysis
English poetry
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-273) and index