Manfred: A dramatic poem is a closet drama written in 1816–1817 by Lord Byron. It contains supernatural elements, in keeping with the popularity of the ghost story in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Gothic fiction. Byron commenced this work in late 1816, a few months after the famous ghost-story sessions with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley that provided the initial impetus for Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus . The supernatural references are made clear throughout the poem. Manfred was adapted musically by Robert Schumann in 1852, in a composition entitled Manfred: Dramatic Poem with Music in Three Parts, and in 1885 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in his Manfred Symphony. Friedrich Nietzsche was inspired by the poem's depiction of a super-human being to compose a piano score in 1872 based on it, "Manfred Meditation". Background Byron wrote this "metaphysical drama", as he called it, after his marriage to Annabella Millbanke failed because of a scandal due to charges of sexual improprieties and an incestuous affair between Byron and his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. Attacked by the press and ostracised by London society, Byron fled England for Switzerland in 1816 and never returned. At the time, he was living at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland. Because Manfred was written immediately after this, and because it regards a main character tortured by his own sense of guilt for an unmentionable offence, some critics consider it to be autobiographical, or even confessional. The unnamed but forbidden nature of Manfred's relationship to Astarte is believed to represent Byron's relationship with his half-sister Augusta. Most of Manfred was written on a tour through the Bernese Alps in September 1816. The third act was rewritten in February 1817, since Byron was not happy with its first version. Plot Manfred is a Faustian noble living in the Bernese Alps. Internally tortured by some mysterious guilt, which has to do with the death of his most beloved, Astarte, he uses his mastery of language and spell-casting to summon seven spirits, from whom he seeks forgetfulness. The spirits, who rule the various components of the corporeal world, are unable to control past events and thus cannot grant Manfred's plea. For some time, fate prevents him from escaping his guilt through suicide. At the end, Manfred dies, defying religious temptations of redemption from sin. Throughout the poem he succeeds in challenging all of the authoritative