At the moment of canto III of Childe Harold's publication, the figure of Byron was at the centre of a complex relationship between privacy, publication, and self-writing. The canto is a reflection on these issues, reconfiguring them so as to distinguish between the public figure of Byron and an implied private, authentic, inward figure. However the language of privacy and separation exploits its own moment of publication, managing the transactions between the figure of the self and the literary public sphere.
Keywords: Byron, privacy, literary public sphere, publication