Transgression of Sexual Parameters in Lord Byron’s Lara

The presence of both taboo and transgression has been pervasive in literature. Although a natural process, sexuality remains a mysterious reality, lying dormant under the linings of various literary works that explicitly insinuate at wild passionate love, uncontrollable desires and overflowing ecstasy. A flamboyant poet such as Lord Byron, whose poetry has gained erotic resonance, is no exception. In his Letters and Journals, he describes poetic creation as “the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake;” such erogenous metaphor reveals a lot about the poet's sexual identity, passionate appetite and sensual creativity. Undoubtedly, Byron's multifaceted sexual identities and complex sexual engagements assume a creative/mythical projection throughout his poetic art that crystallizes in his insinuation at epicene or third sex. To camouflage his ambiguous sexual inconsistencies, his predominant queer passion and protean desires, Byron implements his rigorous sexual fantasy and portrays transgendered sexuality in his tales and poetic oeuvre. This paper calls for a critical reading/rumination of a third gender incarnated in the sexually transgressive character of the foreign-born page Kaled who possesses queer psycho-sexual traits since s/he is transvestic, androgynous and pandrogynous.