A few thoughts on the conclusion of Manfred

After the demons disappear and Manfred begins to die, the meter of the poem becomes more frequently broken with dashes. This occurs particularly with the Abbot’s speech. The breaks in the Abbot’s speech, contrasted with Manfred’s smooth speech patterns with his dying breaths, are unexpected. This dialogue pattern reinforces the message that the living fret more over death than the dying do, consistent with Manfred’s utterance of, “Old man! ‘tis not so difficult to die,” (line 151).

Byron also uses the Abbot as a sort of narrator towards the end of the passage. The Abbot describes Manfred’s physical state—white lips, gasping throat, etc—as he is about to die.

In the last two lines of the poem, the Abbot turns his voice outward and addresses nobody in particular. This is another point at which he serves as a narrator for the story. As a narrator in the last two lines of the passage, the Abbot performs two functions. First, he connects the end of the passage to the beginning, in which Manfred acted as a narrator by describing his surroundings. Second, by replacing Manfred as the narrator, he reinforces the fact that Manfred has died. This adds to the effect of the Abbot repeating the words “he’s gone” / “he is gone” at the beginning and end of the phrase.

The reader could interpret Manfred’s assumption of the role of narrator as a symbol of a seamless integration of life and death. It does seem that Manfred’s body was swallowed by the earth—he felt it heave underneath him (line 148), as in an earthquake. The word “heave” was used five lines earlier to describe the movement of Manfred’s breast, which supports a feeling of Manfred’s body having become one with the earth.

The continuous flow of life into death, demonstrated by Manfred’s easy passing, the Abbot’s assumption of Manfred’s role as narrator, and the imagery of Manfred’s body being swallowed by the earth, ties the passage back to its beginning, which highlighted the takeover of nature after the fall of Rome.