The Riddles of <i>Mazeppa</i>; or, More Questions than Answers: Watermarks and Cohabitations, April 1817-September 1818

Byron's Mazeppa is an unusual case in his writing career. He was generally a quick writer, but this poem - an important link between his earlier melodramatic tales and his later comic ones -was started in April 1817 and completed only in September 1818, nearly eighteen months later. This essay uses various forms of evidence, in particular literary allusion and the various paper stocks on which the poem was drafted, to suggest when and where the poem was 'broken off' before being finally completed. It also considers in the poem in the light of other works written during the period (The Lament of Tasso, Manfred, Childe Harold IV, Beppo, and Don Juan) before considering its overall theme in contrast to Voltaire's History of Charles XII.<p></p>