Byron: Defender of the Abused Child

This Chapter examines the effects of parental rejection in Byron's 'The Deformed Transformed' and James Hogg's 'Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Like Mary Shelley, Byron and Hogg show in their character portraits that ill-treatment of children can cause self-destructive behaviour throughout their lives. In this they display Promethean anticipation of the same conclusions as recent scientific research on the possible outcomes of childhood maltreatment. Rejection and abuse, whether psychological or physical, can cause life-long damage to a person resulting in mental illness, self-hatred and suicide. Once again, as Wilde wrote, “Poets, you know, are always ahead of science; all of the great discoveries of science have been stated before in poetry.