powers he faces, and chooses death over submitting to the powerful spirits. Manfred directs his final words to the Abbot, remarking, "Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die". "The unconquerable individual to the end, Manfred gives his soul to neither heaven nor hell, only to death." Critique Published in June 1817, Manfred has as its epigraph the famous saying from Shakespeare's Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." It seems to be strongly influenced by Goethe's Faust, which Byron probably read in translation (although he claimed never to have read it). In September 1817, John Neal accused Byron of "egotism, contradiction, and affection" in authoring Manfred, claiming that "Byron was made for crime, not vice." Aside from pointing out the poem's absurdities, Neal nevertheless offered high praise and claimed of one verse that "our language does not furnish a more delicate, beautiful, mellow, and quiet picture." Manfred has as its theme defiant humanism, represented by the hero’s refusal to bow to supernatural authority. Peter L. Thorslev Jr. notes that Manfred conceals behind a Gothic exterior the tender heart of the Hero of Sensibility; but as a rebel, like Satan, Cain, and Prometheus, he embodies Romantic self-assertion. Characters In performance Manfred was not originally intended for stage performance; it was written to be a dramatic poem or, as Byron called it, a "metaphysical" drama. It has received much more attention on stage for its musical treatments by Tchaikovsky and Schumann than it has on its own dramatic terms. Nevertheless, Manfred was later famously played by Samuel Phelps. There are no recorded full stagings in Britain in the twentieth century, but readings are more popular, partly because of the difficulty of staging a play set in the Alps, partly because of the work's nature as a closet drama that was never actually intended for the stage in the first place. The exceptional size of the role of Manfred also makes the play difficult to cast. There was a production on BBC Radio 3 in 1988, however, which starred Ronald Pickup as Manfred. A new production, adapted and directed by Pauline Harris with original music composed and performed by Olly Fox and starring Joseph Millson as Manfred, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 8 January 2017 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Manfreds completion. Scenes ACT I SCENE I: MANFRED alone.