Byron’s Social Doctrine 35
to the drama he says, “It is now four years that I have medi-
tated this work.”25 His first idea was to make the tragedy
hinge on the jealousy of the Doge. However, he was dis-
suaded from this policy by his friend Matthew Gregory
Lewis, with whom he discussed his intention in Venice in
1817. Lewis assured him that if he should make the Doge
jealous, he would have to contend with established writers,
to say nothing of Shakespeare, and that he would be better
advised to shift the emphasis.26
The emphasis was shifted accordingly, and Byron takes
the opportunity of striking a blow on behalf of freedom and
another against the ambition and excessive pride which make
tyrants. For the Doge seems to be a split personality. He did
not want to be made Doge of Venice. The position was thrust
upon him while he was happiest in his work as leader of his
army. Nor does he Bke the restrictions placed upon him by
the Council of Ten, who are the petty tyrants of whom Byron
spoke in The Prophecy of Dante. Moreover, he sees the op-
pression of the people of his city and sympathizes with the
conspirators who solicit his aid. But he is overcome with per-
sonal ambition and desires to exchange his Doge’s cap for
a crown. As far as the conspirators are concerned, he may
have his wish, but such overwhelming ambition and desire
for guilty glory can, in Byron’s philosophy, bring him “naught
but grief and pain.” His plot is detected and fails, thus again
expressing Byron’s idea, first seen in Childe Harold, that
revolution to gam freedom is worth while; but when revolu-
tion is staged for personal ambition, as in the case of that
fostered by the Doge, it results in more tyranny and is
doomed to failure.
Blind obedience to a state, on the other hand, is as wrong
as desire for personal gain and glory, and it can lead to noth-
ing better than that which is the final goal of tyranny. This