Byron and the Albanians: Unearthing Identities
Byron and the Albanians: Unearthing Identities

Summary/Abstract: In 1808, an Englishman of twenty years old sought the authorities of his country for permission to visit the British dominions in India, at the time called the East Indies. His destination is the interior of Asia, to which he would take a direct course through the Ottoman dominions rather than opt for a longer route passing through the British colonies. But considering a journey on foreign ground impracticable, he asks for the above-mentioned permission. What is at first deemed impractical turns out to be his destiny: in June 1909, after missing in Faimouth the ship that should convey him to Malta on the way to Constantinople, he travels overland through Portugal, Spain continuing to Malta, Albania, Greece and Turkey. Although the young man never made it to the East Indies, the journey through Portugal and Spain, followed by that to Greece and Albania, made the stuff of world literature and gave posterity to George Gordon Byron and his Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.

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