Cain by Lord Byron (1816)

Just when I thought that maybe I did not like or maybe equal parts not like and not get Byron, I read this. I agree with Goethe, who said after reading this that Byron was the best suited to retell the stories of the Bible and he looked forward to what came next. Unfortunately the modern reader knows that the sum total of Byron's work is already with us, quite voluminous and yet, the Bible is left for another story teller. This is spectacular. Byron could not blacken his hero Cain; he could not make the murderer a hardened criminal. Common sense, his social purpose, and the classical theory of tragedy required that he make out an excellent case for the rebel, to convince us that the rebellion was justified and unavoidable, egged on by Lucifer as he was, but he was left with no choice. We must not dismiss Cain as a grouch nor detest him as vicious or monstrous. We must not even look at him through the eyes of his parents. We are to be as generous as Abel and Adah were at the end, and if we conclude, as his brother did, that Cain was the tragic hero, a man caught between a rock and a hard place. Do not miss this.