SOURCE: Twitchell, James. “The Supernatural Structure of Byron's Manfred.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 15, no. 4 (autumn 1975): 601-14.

In the following essay, Twitchell discusses the supernatural world created by Byron in Manfred.

Although in recent years there has been a resurgence of scholarly interest in Byron's verse dramas, little new knowledge has flowed in its wake. This is especially true of Manfred, where although there is a new level of appreciation (witness the number of times it has been anthologized in the last decade), critical commentary has lagged. Perhaps this new interest in Manfred has arisen because scholars who have been uneasy about Byron's place in the nineteenth century have at last found a way to make him into a Romantic. For Manfred is Byron's most “Romantic” work, both in character and in theme. Here is an almost Faustian man, who has spent his life pushing towards a union...