Whistlecraft

by John Hookham Frere

Frere was a diplomat, a satirist, and one of the principal contributors to The Anti-jacobin. His mock-heroic poem, a tale of monks, knights and giants, is of the greatest interest. The first two cantos, published in 1817, were sent to Byron, who was delighted, most particularly with the verse-form, which Frere had derived from Italian sources. Beppo was the immediate product, Don Juan the ultimate result, of Byron's reading of Frere, and his subsequent reading of Frere's sources. But, as Jonathan Wordsworth shows in his introduction, Byron did not merely adapt Frere's stanza to his own purposes. Frere was a brilliant and humorous writer, whose level, allusive, conversational and throwaway lines helped provide Byron with a tone and method, as well as a form, for his great poem.

134 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1992

About the author

John Hookham Frere was an English diplomat and author.