SOURCE: Lansdown, Richard. “Fantasy Elements in Byron's Sardanapalus.” Keats-Shelley Journal 40 (1991): 47-72.

In the following essay, Lansdown investigates elements of fantasy as well as autobiography in Sardanapalus.

Our sense of the individuality of the artist is inseparable from our sense of the human case that underlies the art.

—W. W. Robson

I

The second of Byron's three historical dramas, Sardanapalus, was written at Ravenna between 13 January and 27 May 1821. The note in Byron's journal that he had “Sketched the outline and Drams. Pers.” of this “intended tragedy,” which he had “for some time meditated,” is followed a few lines later by this entry: “news come—the Powers mean to war with the peoples.”¹ This entry is not in any way remarkable. On the next page we read:

… wrote part of a scene of Sardanapalus. Went out—heard some music—heard some politics. More ministers from the other Italian powers gone...