THE UNINHIBITED BYRON: An Account of His Sexual Confusion

by Bernard Grebanier ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1970

. . . or sexual prolusion. Professor Grebanier, who has been attracted to undiscovered countries in his Shakespeare studies (The Great Shakespeare Forgery: The Heart of Hamlet) happily threads his way through the tangle of Byron's amatory messes with a cavalier but amusing use of some curious material, the most startling being those ""scurrilous verses"" by theatrical impresario and playwright, George Colman the Younger--Don Leon. Colman, it seems, was a carousing companion during much of Byron's embroilment with the big A's--unstrung half-sister Augusta (although Grebanier takes the benign and tolerant stance of Peter Gunn in his My Dearest Augusta, 1969) and the bewildered-to-formidable Annabelle. And it is mainly from Don Leon--a decidedly raucous defense of sodomy--that the author pulls clues which point to Annabelle's society-rocking divorce as proceeding from a revulsion from unnatural acts rather than the revelation of incest. As far as that sensational attachment is concerned, Grebanier accepts rumor, hint, innuendo as fact and produces some new material in the form of utterances by the purported issue, Augusta's daughter, Medora--of clearly unstable practices, and it would appear, mind. He also insists (and here, unfortunately the sources are not clear) that Byron's nurse, May Gray, when Byron was nine, performed acts which traumatized his sexual proclivities, leading to not only the inability to link passion and love (except possibly with Augusta) but a series of homosexual attachments. Tenuous perhaps but well served by both the author's contagious enjoyment and the subject's legacy of unlimited suppositions.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION