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Which writers did Lord Byron attack in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers?
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Lord Byron
British Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, c. 1820.
In his 1809 satire English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, Lord Byron targeted several prominent literary figures of his time.
Written as a retaliation against the harsh criticism his collection Hours of Idleness received from The Edinburgh Review, the poem attacked the following:
- Francis Jeffrey: The editor of The Edinburgh Review, whom Byron held responsible for the negative assessment of his work.1
- Romanticism poets: Byron specifically criticized leading figures of the movement, most notably William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.1
Byron utilized heroic couplets to deliver these critiques, modeling his style after Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad. He ultimately came to regret these attacks, leading him to suppress the poem's fifth edition in 1812.1