Lord Byron: Don Juan

Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron or simply Lord Byron (1788-1824) was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic
movement. He is considered to be a member of the second generation of Romantic poets, alongside John Keats
and Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was known for his technical brilliance and daring (even taboo) themes, as well as his
flamboyant personality and tumultuous personal life. Byron was born in 1788 and inherited his title at the age of
ten upon the death of his great-uncle. He was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he
excelled in languages and literature. In the 1810s, he lived most of his life in Italy (Venice, Ravenna, Pisa) and
often held large dinner parties in his Italian mansion; one of his most frequent guests was his personal friend Percy
Bysshe Shelley. In the 1820s, he left for Greece to join the Greek War of Independence against the Ottomans. He
died in Greece in 1824 of a fever.

Don Juan
Don Juan is an epic poem written by Lord Byron that is known for its irreverent tone, as well as its playful,
humorous style. Don Juan can also be understood as a Juvenalian satire (Juvenal was a Roman poet famous for his
irreverent, contemptuous satire.) The first parts were published in 1819, while the seventeenth, unfinished canto
was published in 1824.

● Basic frame story: It is a long and complex work that tells the story of a young Spanish nobleman (Don
Juan) who, after being shipwrecked, embarks on a series of adventures and encounters a diverse cast of
characters, including pirates, sultans and princesses, and members of contemporary British society.
● The character of Don Juan:
○ Instead of portraying Don Juan as an irresistible womanizer, Byron depicts him as a man who
always falls in love with women and is seduced by many of them.
○ The titular character’s name should probably be pronounced as “Joo-one” as Byron rhymes Juan
with “true one” or “threw one”.
● Topics: The poem is famous for its depiction of sexual desire and the way it subverts traditional notions
of love and romance. It is also notable for its use of satire and its irreverent commentary on the social and
political issues of the time. His work was criticized at the time for making fun of his contemporaries and
making them too identifiable - including the Lake Poets Wordsworth, Coleridge and especially Robert
Southey.
● Significance: Don Juan is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most important works of English
poetry, and it has inspired countless other writers and artists over the years.
● Structure: The story is told in 16.000 lines (in 17 cantos) written in 8-line verses with an ottava rima
(abababcc) rhyming pattern. The ottava rima was originally used for heroic themes, but Byron and other
19th century poets used it to write mock-heroics. Many of Byron’s rhymes are slant (not perfect rhymes)
and many rhymes are used for comic effect.
● Style: Don Juan is characterized by a witty, mocking, satirical style. Byron often “breaks the fourth wall”
and talks to the readers, criticizes other poets outside the narrative, or just comments on his own work and
life. Many at the time criticized Byron for his themes and style, but he did not explicitly write about sexual
intercourse for example, only alluded to it.

Story of Canto I
Don Juan is still a small boy in Seville when his father Don José dies, leaving the boy in the care of his mother,
Donna Inez, a righteous woman who made her husband's life miserable. She has her son tutored in the arts of
fencing, riding, and shooting, and she herself attempts to rear him in a moral manner. The young Juan reads widely
in the sermons, lives of the saints and the classics, but he does not seem to absorb from his studies. At sixteen, he is
a handsome lad much admired by his mother's friends. Donna Julia, his mother’s friend, in particular, often looks
pensively at the youth. Julia is just twenty-three, but married to a man of fifty, Don Alfonso. Although she loves her
husband, or so she tells herself, she often thinks of young Don Juan. One day, finding herself alone with him, she
gives herself to the young Don Juan. (Byron doesn’t describe the intercourse - instead he starts digressing about
how “ill-minded” he is and how he promises to be better and more pure and chaste next year). The young lovers
spend long hours together during the summer. Then they start meeting and staying together for hours, even at
Julia's home. One November evening, Julia’s servant Antonia warns them that Don Alfonso is coming home. The
Don and his men find nothing suspicious - as Don Juan is hiding in the bed under the bedsheets. However, later
Alfonso returns again only to find a pair of men’s shoes. When Juan tries to escape, he knocks into Alfonso and a
short tussle ensues in which Juan loses all his remaining clothes and has to run home naked. As a result of the
events Alfonso divorces Julia, who is sent into a nunnery. Juan’s mother Inez sends to leave Seville and go to travel
around Europe on ships. At the end of Canto I, Byron devotes some 22 stanzas to taunting other poets and to talk
about fame and the passage of time.
Mocking other poets in the Dedication
Bob Southey! You’re a poet, poet laureate,
And representative of all the race.
Although ’tis true that you turned out a Tory at
Last, yours has lately been a common case.
(Dedication, verse 1, lines 1-4)
And Wordsworth in a rather long Excursion
(I think the quarto holds five hundred pages)
Has given a sample from the vasty version
Of his new system to perplex the sages.
’Tis poetry, at least by his assertion,
And may appear so when the Dog Star rages,
And he who understands it would be able
To add a story to the tower of Babel.
(Dedication, stanza 4, lines 1-8)
Choosing a hero
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I’ll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.
(Canto 1, stanza 1 & 3, lines 1-8, 17-24)
The first act between Julia and Juan and Byron’s
digression
And Julia’s voice was lost, except in sighs,
Until too late for useful conversation;
The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes,
I wish indeed they had not had occasion,
But who, alas! can love, and then be wise?
Not that remorse did not oppose temptation;
A little still she strove, and much repented
And whispering ‘I will ne’er consent’—consented.
O Pleasure! you are indeed a pleasant thing,
Although one must be damn’d for you, no doubt:
I make a resolution every spring
Of reformation, ere the year run out,
But somehow, this my vestal vow takes wing,
Yet still, I trust it may be kept throughout:
I’m very sorry, very much ashamed,
And mean, next winter, to be quite reclaim’d.
The scuffle between Don Juan and Don Alfonso
Dire was the scuffle, and out went the light;
Antonia cried out ‘Rape!’ and Julia ‘Fire!’
But not a servant stirr’d to aid the fight.
Alfonso, pommell’d to his heart’s desire,
Swore lustily he’d be revenged this night;
And Juan, too, blasphemed an octave higher;
His blood was up: though young, he was a Tartar,
And not at all disposed to prove a martyr.
Alfonso’s sword had dropp’d ere he could draw it,
And they continued battling hand to hand,
For Juan very luckily ne’er saw it;
His temper not being under great command,
If at that moment he had chanced to claw it,
Alfonso’s days had not been in the land
Much longer.—Think of husbands’, lovers’ lives!
And how ye may be doubly widows—wives!
Alfonso grappled to detain the foe,
And Juan throttled him to get away,
And blood (’twas from the nose) began to flow;
At last, as they more faintly wrestling lay,
Juan contrived to give an awkward blow,
And then his only garment quite gave way;
He fled, like Joseph, leaving it; but there,
I doubt, all likeness ends between the pair.
Lights came at length, and men, and maids, who
found
An awkward spectacle their eyes before;
Antonia in hysterics, Julia swoon’d,
Alfonso leaning, breathless, by the door;
Some half-torn drapery scatter’d on the ground,
Some blood, and several footsteps, but no more:
Juan the gate gain’d, turn’d the key about,
And liking not the inside, lock’d the out.
Here ends this canto.—Need I sing, or say,
How Juan naked, favour’d by the night,
Who favours what she should not, found his way,
And reach’d his home in an unseemly plight?
(Canto 1, stanzas 188-192)
Mocking other poets at the end of Canto I
Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;
Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;
Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,
The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy.
(Canto 1, stanza 205, line 1-4)
Go, little book, from this my solitude!
I cast thee on the waters—go thy ways!
And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,
The world will find thee after many days.’
When Southey’s read, and Wordsworth understood,
I can’t help putting in my claim to praise—
The four first rhymes are Southey’s every line:
For God’s sake, reader! take them not for mine.