Things to Consider:

• Byronic Hero
• History and Politics
• Narrator / Persona
• The Sublime
• Closet Drama genre
  
• Role of Spirits (compared, for example, with those in Coleridge's Ancient Mariner)
• Bounds of Knowledge (Scientific and Intimate)
• Power of Speech/Language
• Relationship to Nature
  

):

• What are the characteristics of the Byronic Hero?

Manfred (1817):

• Which of the characteristics of the Byronic Hero does Manfred exemplify? Provide a quote in support of your claim.

351:

• How, according to the editors, is Manfred different from Faust?

• Describe Manfred's emotional state at the beginning of the play.

• What does Manfred request of the seven spirits?  Why?

• Explain lines 1.2.39-45:
• But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,
• Half dust, half deity, alike unfit
• To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make
• A conflict of emotions, and breathe
  
• The breath of degradation and of pride,
• Contending with low wants and lofty will,
• Till our Mortality predominates.

•   How do these lines compare with Pope's  Essay on Man?
• Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
• A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
• With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
• With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
• He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
• In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
• In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
• Born but to die, and reasoning but to err; (Pope 2.3-10)

• Describe the relationship between Manfred and Astarte (the woman he describes in 2.2.105-17).

• What bargain does the Witch of the Alps offer Manfred?  Why does he refuse it?

• Explain Manfred's speech to Astarte (2.4.116-50).

• Why, according to the editors, did Byron's position within the canon of English Romantic poetry become insecure during the Victorian period?
  
• Explain: "Byron cultivated a skepticism about established systems of belief that, in its restlessness and defiance, expressed the intellectual and social ferment of his era" (336).

337:

• Explain: "Although Byronism was largely a fiction, ... the fiction was historically more important than the actual person" (337).

338:

• Describe the circumstances surrounding Byron's departure from England.

• Describe Byron's relationship with Teresa Guiccioli.
  
• Describe the Pisan circle.

• Is Manfred a sympathetic character?  Explain.
• Does Manfred get what he deserves? Feel free to interpret this question however you want.

• Explain:  What is a “tyrant-spell” (1.1.43)?

• What phenomenon is being described in 1.1.116-19?
• What can't Manfred utter (1.1.138)?
• Explain: “We can but give thee that which we possess” (1.1.139).

• Who is singing the Incantation?

• Explain lines 1.1.254-57.

• Why can't Manfred commit suicide?
• What might the eagle represent?
• Explain: “Oh, that I were / The viewless spirit of a lovely sound” (1.2.52-53).
• [These lines can be compared with Percy Shelley's “To a Skylark,”esp. 18-20 and 36-40, and Keats's “Ode to a Nightingale,” esp. 31-33.]

360:

• Explain Manfred's appeal to the avalanches (1.2.75-79).
  

• Why does the chamois hunter stop Manfred from committing suicide?

• Of whose blood does the wine remind Manfred (2.1.24-30)?
• Explain:  “Actions are our epochs” (2.1.52).

• Is Manfred's view of the chamois hunter Wordsworthian?  Explain.
• Explain:  “My embrace was fatal” (2.1.88).

• Explain lines 2.2.10-12.  Does Manfred seek solitude or not?  Explain.
• Explain lines 2.2.39-41.  What knowledge, if any, is he seeking?

• To what degree are the experiences Manfred describes in 2.2.50-83 Wordsworthian?  To what degree do they reveal his status as a Byronic Hero? Explain.
  

• Explain lines 2.2.140-50.  How does Manfred compare with the Wandering Jew? Explain.

• Who are the three Destinies?  What is their relationship to humans?  How are they similar to the witches in MacBeth?

• Who is Arimanes?  Why have the spirits gathered before him?  Why is Manfred there?

• Why does Manfred refuse to bow to Arimanes (2.4.37-42)?
• Explain lines 2.4.46-49.

• What is the significance of Astarte's name?

• Explain Astarte's responses (2.4.150-59).
• Explain:  “This is to be mortal / And seek things beyond mortality” (2.4.158-59).
• Explain:  He “makes / His torture tributary to his will” (2.4.160-61).

• Why has the Abbot come?
• What is he saying about Manfred's “noble name” (3.1.31-33)?

• Explain Manfred's words to the Abbot:  “I shall not choose a mortal / To be my mediator” (3.1.54-55).
• Explain Manfred's discussion of holy men and self-condemnation in 3.1.66-78.

• Why does Manfred say “It is too late” (3.1.98)?  Is it really?  Does the Abbot agree?  Explain.

• Who is "thou earliest minister of the Almighty" (3.2.11)?  Explain.
• Why is Manfred addressing the “Monarch of the climes”(3.2.20) in this way?

• According to Manuel, how does Manfred differ from his father, Count Sigismund?

• Explain Manfred's words to the spirits in 3.4.112-21.

385:

• Explain Manfred's final words (3.4.151).

• Explain: “He / Must serve who fain would sway” (3.1.116-17).

• Explain the description of Nature in 3.4.3-7.

• Explain Manfred's words to the spirits in 3.4.138-41.