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Which parts of Switzerland inspired Lord Byron’s poem Manfred?
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Lord Byron
British Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, c. 1820.
The scenery for Lord Byron’s poetic drama Manfred (1817) was inspired by his visit to the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland.1
Byron wrote the work during the summer of 1816, a period he spent in Switzerland near Geneva. The dramatic poem reflects the author's own brooding sense of guilt and captures the frustrations of the Romantic spirit through its protagonist, who is described as being "half dust, half deity, alike unfit to sink or soar".1