The form and language of George Gordan Byron's “Cain”

Introduction. In the context of globalization, the emergence of Romanticism, one of the largest currents in nineteenth-century literature, is gaining traction in the scientific schools of literature. the scope of applied research is expanding.

In world literature, the literature of Romanticism developed on the basis of humanistic ideas such as spiritual nourishment, freedom of the individual, the struggle for human dignity, while respecting the ancient, classical literature. The great geniuses of world aesthetic thinking, thinkers, philosophers praised the literature of Romanticism and expressed their valuable views in the field of defining its theoretical foundations, principles.

Romanticism a strong influence on the spiritual life of society, literary , social and aesthetic underpinnings of the artistic , literary and artistic direction are not open enough to the need for research in this area . World translation of literary works of the great genius of other direct and indirect , to make a comparative study of comparative literature , translation theory and practice of modern science as well as the improvement of the service .

Cain is a dramatic work by Lord George Byron published in 1821. In Cain, Byron dramatizes the story of Cain and Abel from Cain's point of view. Cain is an example of the literary genre known as closet drama.

The play commences with Cain refusing to participate in his family's prayer of thanksgiving to God. Cain tells his father he has nothing to thank God for because he is fated to die. As Cain explains in an early soliloquy, he regards his mortality as an unjust punishment for Adam and Eve's transgression in the Garden of Eden, an event detailed in the Book of Genesis. Cain's anxiety over his mortality is heightened by the fact that he does not know what death is. At one point in Act I, he recalls keeping watching at night for the arrival of death, which he imagines to be an anthropomorphic entity. The character who supplies Cain with knowledge of death is Lucifer. In Act II, Lucifer leads Cain on a voyage to the "Abyss of Space" and shows him a catastrophic vision of the Earth's natural history, complete with spirits of extinct life forms like the mammoth. Cain returns to Earth in Act III, depressed by this vision of universal death. At the climax of the play, Cain murders Abel. The play concludes with Cain's banishment.

Perhaps the most important literary influence o n Cain was John Milton's epic poem “Paradise Lost”, which tells of the creation and fall of mankind. For Byron as for many Romantic poets, the hero of Paradise Lost was Satan, and Cain is modeled in part on Milton's defiant protagonist. Furthermore, Cain's vision of the Earth's natural history in Act II is a parody of Adam's consolatory vision of the history of man (culminating in the coming and sacrifice of Christ) presented by the Archangel Michael in Books XI and XII of Milton's epic. In the preface to Cain, Byron attempts to downplay the influence of poems "upon similar topics", but the way he refers “to Paradise Lost” suggests its formative influence: "Since I was twenty, I have never read Milton, but I had read him so frequently before, that this may make little difference. "

As Byron himself notes in the preface to Cain, Cain's vision in Act II was inspired by the theory of catastrophism. In an attempt to explain large gaps in the fossil record, catastrophists posited that the history of the Earth was punctuated with violent upheavals that had destroyed its flora and fauna. Byron read about catastrophism in an 1813 English translation of some early work by French natural historian Georges Cuvier. Other influences include The Divine Legation of Moses by William Warburton and A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful by Edmund Burke.

The fact that Cain has been associated with such radically different theoretical perspectives might be taken to suggest, in itself, that we are not dealing with a work of straightforward polemical intentions but one that is more resistant to interpretation than has generally been allowed in particular, the directly opposed readings when taken together, seem to call into question the very possibility of understanding the play from a single, overarching philosophical point of view. The latter's identification of Cain's 'unmitigated rationalism as a potential object of critique is entirely plausible and tends to complicate the connection between rebellion and heroism assumed by the play's orthodox readings. On the other hand, to go as far as to suggest that Cain is an expression of religious orthodoxy that facilitates the task of vindicating God is to go too far.

His first reading one of the play's advocates of love, for instance, is unconvincing, whereas their claim that his one of the self-righteous supporters of the tyrant god fits the tones and emphases of the play far more closely. As for why Byron would write a religiously orthodox play during a hiatus in the composition of “Don Juan”, his first answer that “Cain” represents' an extreme in the Byronic canon and conveys a standpoint too absolute for Byron's philosophy of uncertainty again fails to convince. It is certainly the case that most established readings of “Cain” over state or simplify Byron's rationalist and anti-establishment intentions, but I don't think the play licenses quite this much certainly at the other end of the spectrum either. Its sub-titular 'mystery' is not so easily dispersed we might, given this apparent philosophical messiness, conclude that “Cain” is a muddled piece of thinking lacking any real intellectual coherence. We may even decide, with Philip Martin, that the work is as potent an affirmation of Byron's bankruptcy as a philosophical “Cain” and philosophical poetry poet as we are likely to find. This seems undeniable if we understand philosophical poet to mean a philosopher who has chosen to formulate his opinions in verse. On the other hand, if we take such a poet to be a thinker interested in the philosophical implications of literary form as a distinct means of apprehension, then the case becomes more complex. if we understand poetry, that is, as being philosophical', not because it makes direct philosophical claims but because it is interested in the context of philosophy emergence into epistemological privilege, then we will need to judge that poetry unless impoverished terms.

There is a bad habit in Byron criticism of deciding that the poet is not being serious when he says things that don't fit with the critic's reading of him. This leads to critics choosing what they listen to rather than listening. This is what Byron says in defense of “Cain” in letters to friends and associates if “Cain” be “blasphemous” - paradise lost is blasphemous - and the very words of the oxford gentleman “Evil be thou my good” are from that very poem - from the mouth of Satan, - and is there nothing more in that of Lucifer in the mystery? Cain is nothing more than a drama - not apiece of argument - if Lucifer and Cain speak as the first murderer and the first rebel may be supposed to speak - surely all the rest of the personages talk also according to their characters - and the stronger passions have ever has been permitted to the drama. With respect to “religion,” can in ever convince you that I have no such opinions as the characters in the drama, which seems to have frightened everybody?

My ideas of a character may run away with me like all imaginative men, of course, embody myself with the character while I draw it, but not a moment after the pen is from off the paper claims that these remarks are as all the early reactions to the play indicate, disingenuous. Certainly, Byron's attempt to hide behind is difficult to take without a pinch of salt: although the latter can be and has been read in radically unorthodox terms, Byron's Lucifer (bringer of light) seems far more clearly and subversively intended than the former's Satan (adversary). Lucifer's from his biblical context as well as his clear identification with the Byronic (not quite the same as

Byron's) quest for liberty. Might also suggest that Byron's claim to have written a 'drama' rather than Byron and the forms of thought an 'argument' is something of a red herring. On the other hand, it has not been easy for critics to agree about what precisely Cain is arguing. The play isn't as good as Don Juan at making the determined reducer of poetry look silly, but it also can't help being a literary work written by a poet who always struggles to accept the assumption that argument and thought are identical. This is partly to do with Byron's mind about the enthusiasms of liberal progress: he knew that the determined arguer who thinks that argument is everything can, for all his heroic potential, easily become the author of aftermath (the French revolution made this clear enough, if it wasn't already). This is why Byron is very different to the hunt brothers, even if he thought they were broadly right in some of their key political convictions.

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