Byron exhibits highlight poet’s ties to Greece

Item

Title

Date

29 October 2021–29 January 2022

Date Issued

2021

Abstract

A handwritten phrasebook, the poet’s final journal and a certificate granting him the freedom of the town where he settled, and died, feature in the exhibition. The artefacts, which are emblematic of Byron’s intense love affair with the country, are part of an exhibition that explores Scottish–Greek connections in the early 19th century. Although famously described, by Lady Caroline Lamb, as “mad, bad and dangerous to know”, the great Romantic poet – who spent his childhood in Aberdeenshire – was revered throughout Greece. George Gordon Byron was a vociferous champion of the Greek struggle for independence, which began 200 years ago, and his death at Missolonghi in 1824 was widely mourned. The exhibition, to be held in the University’s Main Library, explores Byron’s Greek connections through a series of exhibits loaned from the National Library of Scotland.

(Edited description from organiser’s website)