'Hurl'd first out of and then back again to Chaos': Byron's Lucretian Regency

Abstract

This chapter discusses the extent to which Lord Byron engaged with the Epicurean philosophy and atomist materialism of Lucretius, providing an overview of Lucretian intertextual elements in Byron's work, analysing the Regency stanzas in Don Juan, and their Lucretian imagery. The concept of the clinamen is discussed in wider theoretical context and applied to Byron's general approach to poetics and history.

Keywords

• Byron
• Lucretius
• clinamen
• Regency
• De Rerum Natura
• Don Juan