Art of Seduction: Byron's Poetry and Scottish Landscapes

A publication called the Galignani plays an important role in the opening chapters of The Law of Divorce. First Roland decides to send Harriet a Galignani Messenger daily, addressed to her with his own handwriting as he thinks that “the mere sight of his handwriting would cheer her misery and revive her hopes, and yet could not, under any circumstances, compromise him.” (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 2). It is in this periodical, sent by Roland, that Harriet reads the news of Roland’s marriage (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 5).

Galignani’s Messenger was a daily newspaper published in Paris from 1814 onwards by Italian Giovanni Antonio Galignani (1775-1821). After his death it was continued by his sons until 1884, when it changed its name to Daily Messenger. It was discontinued in 1914.

The Galignani family, who had a long history in book publishing in Italy (going back to 1520), settled in Paris in 1801 and expanded from publishing to a circulating library, a reading room and a book shop. They were well known to British expatriates, and many were published by Galignani (Byron, Wordsworth, Thackeray, Scott). Librairie Galigniani advertises itself as “the first English bookshop established on the continent.” In 1856 the business moved to rue du Rivoli and remains there.

When Harriet learns the news of Roland’s marriage, she faints and can only be revived with a significant chemical assistance: “sal volatile, eau-de-cologne, smelling salts and aromatic vinegar” (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 5). Then Roland’s letter brings her hope and she argues that “Roland is married again, it is true, but he laments, his marriage already; and we know that it is utterly invalid, and that he can not, according to the Christian law, have really another wife so long as I live." (ibid.)

The Law of Divorce sets “Christian law” against the man-made law of the state. This was and still is an important question, although today Christian law is more often replaced with ‘natural law,’ the integral moral principles embedded in human nature and society. Harriet’s words express what we can expect to be the central question in The Law of Divorce: does the man-made law of divorce go against the more fundamental natural law of marriage, and how we should deal with this contradiction?

Harriet loses no time in throwing down her gauntlet and, at the same time, firmly places herself on the side of “Divine law”; she replies to Roland’s letter, addressing him as “My Dear Husband”:

“… on maturer consideration and further examination of the question, you will come (God grant it may be shortly) to the conclusion that your present position is untenable, that your second marriage is null, and that, unworthy as I have proved myself, I am still, according to the Divine law, your wedded and only wife.” (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 6)

In the same letter, Harriet goes on to give a detailed report of her own infidelity. The narrative boldly set next to each other Harriet’s claim to remain Roland’s wife, his only ‘legal’ wife,” and the very act that stripped the status of a wife from her. Her seducer Walter Dunraven is, according to Harriet, quite a Victorian super(gentle)man:

“He could do everything, and did everything well. When you were gone, he was always the best horse man, the most dexterous angler, the most graceful dancer, the deadest shot, and the stroke oar. He drew well, sang his own songs, and accompanied himself, had a good memory, and captivating manners, and read aloud to perfection; but he had one vice of which I had not, nor, perhaps, you either, the remotest suspicion — namely that, under the guise of a correct life, he was already practised [sic.] in the art of seduction.” (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 6)

The guilt for initiating the liaison is placed firmly on Walter’s side. Harriet describes how Walter flirts with her. The most important part of his seduction technique is reading romantic literature to Harriet. It looks like Walter carries a veritable library of seduction in his luggage, bulging with voluptuous mediterranean love stories:

 “Having with him a small portmanteau full of books, he read to me very often when we were alone. He no longer selected mere tales and novels, but everything that was most amorous and voluptuous also. I allowed myself to listen in this way to the amours of Eloisa and Abelard, of Romeo and Juliet, of Paolo and Francesca di Rimini, of Medoro and Angelina in Ariosto ; of Hugo and Parasina, of Conrad and Medora, of Juan and Haidee, to ' The Loves of the Angels,' and — worst still — to ' The Decameron' of Boccaccio.” (Ibid.)

Abelard and Heloise by Edmund Leighton (1882)

Eloise and Abelard by Alexander Pope was published in 1717. It is based on a medieval, French love story, which ends unhappily with the lovers entering a convent and a monastery. Pope’s poem picks the story up when Eloise’s feelings for Abelard are reawakened in the convent by a letter from Abelard.

Paolo and Francesca da Rimini by Gabriel Dante Rossetti (1867)

We all know what happened to Romeo and Juliet. Paolo and Francesca are adulterous lovers in Dante’s second circle of hell in The Divine Comedy (1308–1321) reserved for the lustful. Medoro and Angelina come from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1532). In this story a Christian hero Orlando, or ‘Roland’ in its anglicized form, is hopelessly in love with pagan Angelina. But Angelina falls in love and elopes with the Saracen Medoro. Hugo, or ‘Ugo’ with name’s Italian form, and Parasina are Italian lovers as well, but they appear in Lord Byron’s poem Parasina, published in 1816. Byron’s inspiration came from Edward Gibbon (1737-1795).  At the head of Parisina (1824 edition), Byron includes a quote explaining the tale:

"the Marquis of Este discovered the incestuous loves of his wife Parisina, and Hugo his bastard son, a beautiful and valiant youth. They were beheaded in the castle by the sentence of a father and husband, who published his shame, and survived their execution." (Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol iii. P470, new edition)"

Conrad and Medora are also lovers by Lord Byron; from his The Corsair (1814). Conrad is dashing pirate, a true Byronic hero, based on the real-live privateer Jean Lafitte (c. 1780 – c. 1823, operating in the Caribbean. Medora is a maiden he kidnaps and falls in love with. The story was extremely popular was turned into an opera by Verdi in 1848 and later became a very popular ballet first staged in Paris in 1856.  Walter is a true fan of Lord Byron, as Juan and Haidee are from Byron’s Don Juan (left unfinished at Byron’s death in 1824). Haidee cares for Don Juan after he survives a shipwreck in the course of his amorous journey. It is interesting that Walter should consider this satire of romance a suitable tool for seducing Harriet.

“The Loves of the Angels” (1822) is a poem by Thomas Moore (1779-1852), a close friend of Byron’s. Moore, an Irishman who became fashionable in London and a diplomat in America led an interesting and varied life, marrying an actress and escaping debts to France among other adventures. His writing career was equally varied. “The Loves of the Angels” tell of three angels who descend (or fall) to earth in an amorous pursuit of mortal women. It elevates purity over desire, but depicts desire nevertheless. The “worst still” in Walter’s “portmanteau” of seduction is Boccaccio’s “The Decameron” – among its hundred stories are some erotic ones. It is classic by very naughty. It should be noted that a full English translation of “The Decameron” would only become available 1886, and Walter was probably using the one by W. K. Kelly published in 1855.

The delights of literary love-making are enjoyed in extremely romantic landscape of the Scottish moors:

The beauty of the poetry, the sweetly modulated tones of the reader, the richly wooded banks of Lock Katrine, the dreamy loveliness of the thirty isles of Loch Lomond, between or around which we sailed, the boats and steamers passing and re-passing crowded with merry passengers and gladdened with harp and minstrel, and wind instruments, whose music floated softly over the waters and died away among the hills, the antique ruins rising amid the solemn yews, the high rocky cliffs — the habitation of the osprey, the mountain paths, the mossy seats, the shady groves, the sunny swards, the odorous dells, the wild-flowered heath, the chill fountain, the foaming waterfalls, the rustic bridge over the thundering cascade, the ever varying colours of the scene, the moonlight and starlight beneath which we used to linger long — alas, too long — all contributed to fill my cup of poisonous enchantment. Love is a mighty wizard, and I was now the victim of his spells. I had by this time — with shame and remorse be it spoken — become the seducer as well as the seduced.” (Ibid.)

Loch Lomond, today the Glaswegians’ recreational backyard, and Loch Katrine, a beautiful loch in the Trossachs National Park, were popular holiday destinations by the time Harriet and Walter went there on holiday with a group of friends. The trip by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to the Scottish Highlands in 1842 famously changed the English view of Scotland as a dangerous, mutinous wilderness, with the help of Romanticism, into a beautiful, majestic landscape full of interesting viewpoints.  It is still a place for romance – you can now get married while cruising on Loch Katrine in “Lady of the Lake,” a ship named after the poem of the same name by Sir Walter Scott (published 1810).

With this double-pronged attack of heavily perfumed love-poetry and magnificent Scottish landscapes,  it is no wonder that Harriet was seduced: “We were staying at an hotel on the banks of the lake. Our apartments were near each other on the same corridor and — I fell.” (Ibid.)