SOURCE: Erdman, David V. “Byron's Stage Fright: The History of His Ambition and Fear of Writing for the Stage.” English Literary History 6 (1939): 219-33.

In the following essay, Erdman maintains that “Byron's attitude towards his dramas is a significant clue to his behaviour generally and to his artistic behaviour in particular.”

I composed it actually with a horror of the stage, and with a view to render even the thought of it impracticable, knowing the zeal of my friends that I should try that for which I have an invincible repugnance, viz. a representation.

(Byron to Murray, of Manfred, 9 March 1817)¹

Unless I could beat them all, it would be nothing …

(Byron to Kinnaird, 31 March 1817)²

Why did Byron write plays ‘to reform the stage’—and then violently protest against their being staged? None of Byron's major biographers has asked this question, although it affords an excellent opportunity to probe into...