George Gordon Byron, The Corsair, a Turkish Tale

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error
The Corsair

is the third of a group of six tales which are usually grouped together under the heading “Turkish Tales”. Byron began the sequence with

The Giaour

(1813) and continued in a similar vein with

The Bride of Abydos

(1813), adding

The Corsair

(1814),

Lara

(1814),

The Siege of Corinth

(1816) and finally

Parisina

(1816). After the initial success of

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

(1812), it was these tales, and particularly

The Corsair

, which consolidated Byron’s fame in England and Europe. It

is a poem in three cantos (a verse tale of the kind popularised by Sir Walter Scott) and is written in heroic couplets, a form which lent itself well to an adventure story such as

The Corsair

.

The poem opens on an island in the Aegean sea with a song glorifying the liberated and carefree

1773 words

Citation: O'Connell, Mary. "The Corsair, a Turkish Tale". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 April 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1192, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1192 The Corsair, a Turkish Tale 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.