dec 7, 1824 - 'Dom Juan', Lord Byron
Description:
unfinished (began in 1818)
This burlesque poem follows the hero through a series of adventures which are comic but also constitute a satire on the society of his time. DJ is sent abroad by his mother to put an end to his affair with Donna Julia, a married woman. He is shipwrecked on a Greek island, where he is saved by Haidée, the daughter of a Greel pirate, and falls in love with her. When Haidée's father returns, H dies and J is sold as a slave in Constatinople to a sultana who falls in love with him. Further adventures finally take him back to England, giving Byron the opportunity of a savage attack against English society. All through the poem, J is presented as inncocent, more sinned against than sinning, this inverting the traditional myth.
The narrator's voice is constantly present, digressing and commenting on the hero's actions with wit, anger and cynicism, mixing formal and colloquial styles.
Amoral and sometimes blasphemous, the poem marks a reaction against the early Romantic movement
Added to timeline:
British Literature
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