Manfred

Because Manfred was written immediately after this, and because it regards a main character tortured by his own sense of guilt for an unmentionable offence, some critics consider it to be autobiographical, or even confessional.

Internally tortured by some mysterious guilt, which has to do with the death of his most beloved, Astarte, he uses his mastery of language and spell-casting to summon seven spirits, from whom he seeks forgetfulness.

"[3] Published in June 1817, Manfred has as its epigraph the famous saying from Shakespeare's Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Aside from pointing out the poem's absurdities, Neal nevertheless offered high praise and claimed of one verse that "our language does not furnish a more delicate, beautiful, mellow, and quiet picture.

[3] Peter L. Thorslev Jr. notes that Manfred conceals behind a Gothic exterior the tender heart of the Hero of Sensibility; but as a rebel, like Satan, Cain, and Prometheus, he embodies Romantic self-assertion.

[6] Manfred was not originally intended for stage performance; it was written to be a dramatic poem or, as Byron called it, a "metaphysical" drama.

][citation needed] Fyodor Dostoyevsky mentions the poem in Notes from Underground when the narrator states, "I received countless millions and immediately gave them away for the benefit of humanity, at the same moment confessing before the crowd all my infamies, which, of course, were not mere infamies, but also contained within them a wealth of 'the lofty and the beautiful' of something Manfred-like" (Dostoyevsky, page 57.

Bantam Books 2005) Herman Melville references the poem twice in Mardi (1849): in Chapter 4 describing being up in the foremast-head: "Now this standing upon a bit of stick 100 feet aloft for hours at a time, swiftly sailing over the sea, is very much like crossing the Channel in a balloon.

"; and in Chapter 11 wondering at a character's gravity: "It was inconceivable, that his reveries were Manfred-like and exalted, reminiscent of unutterable deeds, too mysterious even to be indicated by the remotest of hints."

The whale-boat used to escape in the beginning is named "Chamois," referring explicitly to the goat-antelope creature, and likely also alluding to the hunter in Manfred.

Manfred's oft-quoted speech from Act II Scene 1 which begins "Think'st thou existence doth depend on time?"

"In Memory of My Feelings", the poem by Frank O'Hara, includes the line "Manfred climbs to my nape,/ speaks, but I do not hear him,/ I'm too blue."