George Gordon Byron, Cain

Neil Forsyth (Université de Lausanne)

Ed. by Daniel Robinson, Widener University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837.
Vol. editors: Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Daniel Robinson (Widener University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1821

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

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This verse drama is Byron’s retelling of the Genesis story but with Cain as its hero, both in the sense of the play’s main character, and also as a version of what Byron himself admired and indeed constructed — “the Byronic hero”, which here reaches the final stage of its development. Like his other plays,

Cain

was a closet drama not intended for the stage, a type of romantic poem-drama like Goethe’s

Faust

or, later, Ibsen’s

Peer Gynt

. In fact it has since been performed, for example, by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican Pit in 1995, in a successful production directed by John Barton.

The play is subtitled A Mystery, by which Byron signals not a whodunit but a type of medieval drama illustrating stories from the Bible. As in Genesis 4:2 Abel is “a keeper of

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4680 words

Citation: Forsyth, Neil. "Cain". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 September 2016 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6202, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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