Don Juan by George Gordon, Lord Byron
Preface
Byron dedicates the poem to the Poet Laureate, Robert Southey; satirizes Southey and
Dedication
the other Lake Poets for their politics, pretensions, and verse; and insults the Foreign
Secretary, Castlereagh.
Don Juan is born to Don Jose and Donna Inez; his education. Don Alfonso discovers
Canto the First
his wife, Julia, and 16-year old Juan; Don Juan is sent traveling to escape the scandal.
Canto the
Don Juan sets sail from Cadiz and is shipwrecked. He washes ashore on a Greek pirate
Second
island where he meets Haidée, the pirate’s daughter.
Canto the
Lambro, Haidée's father, returns after being rumored dead to find Don Juan in
Third
possession of his home and daughter.
Canto the
Lambro captures Don Juan and sends him off to slavery in Turkey. Haidée dies.
Fourth
The Sultan’s latest wife, Gulbeyaz, sees Juan on the slave block and anonymously
Canto the Fifth purchases him. Her servant, Baba, conducts Juan to her palace disguised as a girl.
Juan spurns Gulbeyaz’ advances which are interrupted by the arrival of the Sultan.
Juan, still disguised, is led back to the seraglio with the rest of the female slaves. His
disguise is not discovered, but several of the harems vie for the opportunity to share
Canto the Sixth
their beds, and Dudù prevails. Gulbeyaz is informed and summons Juan and Dudù in a
rage.
The action jumps to preparation for the Russian attack on the Turkish fortress of
Canto the
Ismail. Juan, disguised as an English mercenary, and his companions are brought to
Seventh
the Russian general, Suwarrow.
Canto the
Ismail is attacked and taken. Juan saves a young orphaned girl, Leila.
Eighth
Canto the
Juan comes to St Petersburgh with news of the victory, and attracts the attentions of
Ninth
Catherine the Great.
Canto the
Catherine sends Don Juan ambassador to England. Leila accompanies him.
Tenth
Canto the
Juan arrives in England.
Eleventh
Canto the
Leila’s education is entrusted to Mrs. Pinchbeck.
Twelfth
Canto the
Lord Henry and Lady Adeline Amundeville invite Juan to their country seat.
Thirteenth
Canto the
Juan rides to the hounds, and begins to spend time with Lady Adeline.
Fourteenth
Canto the
Lady Adeline tries to arrange a match for Juan, but does not approve when Aurora
Fifteenth
Raby catches his eye.
Canto the
Lord Henry holds court, and Juan meets a ghost.
Sixteenth
Canto the
(Incomplete. Byron died before finishing the poem.)
Seventeenth
OVERVIEW: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s Don Juan
This long, digressive satiric poem is a loose narrative held together only by the hero, Don Juan, and the narrator,
Byron himself, who maintains a mocking, ironic relationship with the story. Byron claimed that he had no plot
in mind as he wrote the poem, and he continued to add episodes as long as he lived, completing sixteen cantos
before his death. He began the poem in 1818 in Italy during a period of wild self-indulgence and profligacy. The
first two cantos were published in 1819. Like many satires, it was criticized by some as being immoral
STYLE. The stanza form is ottava rima, an eight-line iambic pentameter stanza with the rhyme scheme ab ab
ab cc. The final two lines of each stanza form a couplet which Byron frequently uses for a punch line or comic
wind-up. Byron also creates comic effects with his use of forced rhymes ("new one" . . . "Juan") and rhymes of
two or three syllables ("intellectual" . . . "henpecked you all"). The poem’s light tone suggests that Byron does
not take the characters and events seriously; the language is colloquial, conversational, and slangy.
THE DON JUAN CHARACTER. Certain incidents and characters are drawn from Byron’s life, but he is not
Don Juan. He names his hero after the most notorious lover and seducer of women in European literature.
Originally a villain in a Spanish story, Don Juan had become the archetype of the heartless, remorseless seducer.
The Don Juan character represents a merely physical desire divorced from any spiritual or even humane
feelings. Ironically, Byron gives the name of this cold and callous stock character to his own, more modest hero.
Byron’s young lover is, at first, simple and naive. Every woman who meets him finds him charming; thus he has
no need for force, treachery, or the seductive arts. Byron projects his own, more worldly personality as the
narrator.
CANTO I. Canto I presents the birth, childhood, and education of Don Juan up through his first seduction and
affair. Don Juan is the son of an aristocratic father and an intellectual mother. After the father’s early death, little
Juan is educated according to his mother’s plan. She has him tutored in arts and sciences, but she forbids him to
learn anything “that hints continuation of the species.” Further, in his study of classical literature he cannot read
any of the “looser” or suggestive poems; he must read only expurgated versions of these. In stanzas 52 and 53
the narrator protests such a distorted education.
The narration moves forward to Juan’s sixteenth year, when his mother’s friend, Donna Julia, begins to find him
attractive. She is a pretty, young woman married to an elderly husband, and she deceives herself into believing
that she can subdue her attraction to Juan. She vows not to see him but then goes the next day to visit his
mother. Donna Julia imagines that she can maintain a platonic love for Juan, but all her resolve fails when she
finds herself alone with him. Naive Juan, meanwhile, does not know the cause of his own discontent. He seeks
answers in nature and in philosophy. Stanza 115 pictures Juan and Julia in a garden, half-embracing. The poet
undercuts this romantic scene with a mocking tirade against Plato for spreading false ideas about love. In stanza
116 the temptation has become too great, and she “whispering ‘I will ne’er consent’ -- consented.” Byron shows
the folly of self-deception that would deny the physical basis of love.
After a digression the poet returns to Julia and Juan six months later. Their affair has intensified, and Julia’s
husband, Don Alphonso, has become suspicious. He breaks into her bedroom one night with a posse of friends
and servants, makes a comic search, but finds nothing. Sending the others away, he apologizes to his wife for his
foolish jealousy. As he lingers by her bed, he sees Juan’s shoes. Young and slim, Juan has been hiding in the
bed clothes all the time. There is a confrontation between lover and husband, but luckily neither has a sword.
Juan escapes, but scandal follows. Julia’s husband sends her to a convent, and Juan’s mother sends him away on
a grand tour to, ironically, perfect his morals.