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I read this from True Pleasures by Lucinda Holdforth:
"Ever since Rousseau idealised the noble savage and Beethoven refused to bow his head to a nobleman and Byron tossed his raven curls, good manners, forms, etiquette, courtesies, all these have been devalued."
I don't understand the allusion to Byron. Why raven curls? And why is etiquette devalued by tossing his raven curls?
I read this from True Pleasures by Lucinda Holdforth:
"Ever since Rousseau idealised the noble savage and Beethoven refused to bow his head to a nobleman and Byron tossed his raven curls, good manners, forms, etiquette, courtesies, all these have been devalued."
I don't understand the allusion to Byron. Why raven curls? And why is etiquette devalued by tossing his raven curls?
Byron's hair was black. "Raven" is a poetic way of saying it was black [Ravens are black birds]
These people refused to bow to convention and did things as they wanted. What the author is suggesting is that the aggressively nonconformist attitude they showed has crept through society as a whole so that good manners and consideration for others have gradually disappeared.
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