Okay, after all this talk about Lord Byron and his sex-capades and the Byronic hero, I did some reading on both. I wonder if there'll ever be a course dedicated to Byron and his "adventures," or even his literature .. ? Moving on; There's so much information surrounding the larger than life male characters from Manfred and Wuthering Heights (Manfred and Heathcliff, respectively), but the women that loved them (or that they loved) are considered not as important because they aren't the center. Of course, this made me consider WHY women can't be Byronic heros. There are many websites with lists of the personality traits of the BH, but none of them a gender-specific. Is the term Byronic hero exclusive only to males because of the inspiration from Lord Byron? If Catherine believed she was connected, in fact, to Heathcliff, wouldn't she be a Byronic hero? Of course, because she considered herself part of him and HE was the Byronic hero, then her gender was ultimately canceled out. Wait, did the term Byronic hero even come from Byron? When applied to the life of Byron, the BH is essentially Byron reincarnated into different characters. Considered extremely beautiful, mysterious, passionate and highly sexual, Byron was quite the character. Just ask the 200+ women that .. um, experienced (?) him. Where does the Byronic Heroine gain her inspiration, then? Considered a complex, independent character (1), the B Heroine would be vampy, dark, and sexual, the opposite to the respected madonna. Obviously, she gets no love because of her behavior. But where is the example for her, as the men have, arguably, Lord Byron? Modernly, we have Xena (warrior princess ..) but did she exist in the Romantic Period? Given the strict gender roles, the sexy Byronic Heroine may just be hiding, waiting to be discovered.
1. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dissertations/AAI3034921/
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