Jousting for the Honour of Greece and `a certain Miss Phrosyne': Baron Byron and Gally Knight Clash over Costume, Correctness, and a Princess

Author: Franklin, Michael J.¹

Source: The Modern Language Review, Volume 103, Number 2, 1 April 2008 , pp. 330-349(20)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

This article attempts to rescue Henry Gally Knight (1786-1846), architectural writer and antiquary, from the footnotes of literary history. Few Romantic writers of Oriental verse tales travelled to the East, and the work of this friend of Walter Scott and William Wilberforce, patron of Turner, and contemporary of Byron's at Cambridge warrants reconsideration. The article compares redactions of the Kyra Phrosine story, footnoted in Byron's The Giaour: A Fragment of a Turkish Tale and featured in Knight's Phrosyne: A Grecian Tale, to show how this beautiful victim of Asiatic arbitrary power became central to the Greek fight for independence.

Keywords: Henry Gally Knight; Oriental verse tales; Byron; Kyra Phrosine; Asiatic arbitrary power; Greek fight for independence

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Swansea University

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