SOURCE: Demers, Patricia. “The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron: The Evaporation of Honour.” Renaissance and Reformation 11, no. 2 (1975): 85-96.

In the essay below, Demers examines evaporation imagery in Byron, relating it to the protagonist's gradual tragic fall through the course of the two dramas.

… see in his revolt how honour's flood Ebbs into air, when men are great, not good.(1) 

Charles de Gontaut, Duke of Byron, is no reincarnation of Bussy D'Ambois. The superficial similarities he bears to Chapman's earlier hero only serve to outline more clearly the distance between them. The Prologue awards him the status of an autumnal star (1. 12) and a fanfare of loud music (I. ii) announces his entrance—so unlike the posthumous stellification and quiet choric self-introduction of Bussy. Byron approaches the discontented La Fin, “alone, and heavy countenanc'd” (II. i. 54), in a way reminiscent of Monsieur's approach to Bussy, just as...