The Poetry Club Discusses Byron's Don Juan- An informal discussion... all are welcome

[stlukesguild]

Considering that the thread entitled "The Poetry Book Club Final Poll" is not likely to lead to interested outsiders joining in on our discussion of Don Juan, I have started this thread here.

[YesNo]

Thanks for starting the thread, stlukesguild.

Although the story in the first canto is easy to understand and very entertaining, I keep coming back to why Byron spends so much time satirizing Southey, Coleridge and Wordsworth. In spite of his apparent disgust for Southey, he dedicates the poem to him.

Here is part of a stanza toward the end of the first canto which seems to show what poets Byron likes and doesn't like.

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. (CCV)

So I'm wondering why Byron spends so much time on these other poets?

[JBI]

Thanks for starting the thread, stlukesguild.

Although the story in the first canto is easy to understand and very entertaining, I keep coming back to why Byron spends so much time satirizing Southey, Coleridge and Wordsworth. In spite of his apparent disgust for Southey, he dedicates the poem to him.

Here is part of a stanza toward the end of the first canto which seems to show what poets Byron likes and doesn't like.

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. (CCV)

So I'm wondering why Byron spends so much time on these other poets?

The first three are archetypal classical authors and masters of English style and thought. Milton the rhetorical god, Dryden the French-influenced neo-classicist, and Pope the Horatian satirist. They stand as traditional models up until the point of lyrical ballads.

As for the next three, Wordsworth is a radical gone sell-out, who took lyrical ballads and without asking Coleridge made it a radical manifesto, and then abandoned it with the rise of Napoleon. Coleridge a drug addict philosopher, and Southey a mediocre poet.

[Drkshadow03]

Thanks for starting the thread, stlukesguild.

Although the story in the first canto is easy to understand and very entertaining, I keep coming back to why Byron spends so much time satirizing Southey, Coleridge and Wordsworth. In spite of his apparent disgust for Southey, he dedicates the poem to him.

Here is part of a stanza toward the end of the first canto which seems to show what poets Byron likes and doesn't like.

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. (CCV)

So I'm wondering why Byron spends so much time on these other poets?

It's kind of the equivalent of rappers dissing each other in their lyrics. I think when Byron dedicates his poem to Southey it is meant to be ironic.

[YesNo]

I can see the dedication to Southey as ironical and it seems that Milton, Dryden and Pope would be classical in Byron's time.

I wonder if there is anything about the choice of Don Juan as content for the poem itself that might be relevant to Byron's criticism of his contemporaries Southey, Coleridge and Wordsworth. Perhaps not, or not consciously to Byron. He probably just enjoyed the Don Juan story and figured it would be more interesting than what these other poets were offering.

I read through a few of Southey's poems in a collected works on the internet that seemed sentimental and for that reason mediocre. He does seem to have a good metrical technique, but not interesting content.

[JBI]

I can see the dedication to Southey as ironical and it seems that Milton, Dryden and Pope would be classical in Byron's time.

I wonder if there is anything about the choice of Don Juan as content for the poem itself that might be relevant to Byron's criticism of his contemporaries Southey, Coleridge and Wordsworth. Perhaps not, or not consciously to Byron. He probably just enjoyed the Don Juan story and figured it would be more interesting than what these other poets were offering.

I read through a few of Southey's poems in a collected works on the internet that seemed sentimental and for that reason mediocre. He does seem to have a good metrical technique, but not interesting content.

Look at the first Canto - Byron kicks the thing off with an ironic rhyme over the name Juan itself - he rhymes it ironically.

But as a character, the story is old, yet is twisted, and Byron twists it - he is at once rebellious against neo-classical authority, yet also a great lover of it - that is Don Juan himself - he is learned, yet ridiculous, sensible like Rousseau, yet arrogant and defiant like Byron himself - there is much there, and the taking of the classical story and bringing it, instead of in the Romantic vision, into a weird mix of romantic and classical, gives something fresh to it.

Byron is a twisted contradictory poet - the other Romantics are more stable than Byron - Byron is also the one who enjoyed the most success early off, and broke with societal norms in the strictest ways, including conceiving with his half-sister and growing a penchant for anal sex with both men and women, of whom he would solicit on all possible occasions.

Ironically though he also was schooled, classical (writing something like Hebrew Melodies, for instance) regulated in verse, and accepted in households almost as soon as he put pen to paper. A great lover of Pope and Jonson, he nonetheless broke every possible rule, like Don Juan.

That's where I see the relevance, the character is somewhere in between worlds, and much of the comedy of the poem lies in the fact that the poem breaks rules. The rhymes are ironic, the content ironic, Don Juan falls in love as fast as he runs, much of the content is comedic when it should be tragic, or ridiculous when it should be serious.

Likewise, the stanza form itself begs a mention. This is the verse form of such romances as Ariosto's Orlando, or Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, both extremely popular in their times, and controversial as new fusions of poetry - lyric crossed with epic to create Romance - grounds on which someone like Milton would later criticize Ariosto. Such a form would have special place in Byron, in that the poem is contradictory, in the sense that Pope's Mock-epics are. It is really something out of nowhere, that ironizes as it romances. That I guess would be similar to something like traditional Don Juan tales, such as Moliere's comedy, or Mozart's off of La Ponte.

The story itself is contradictory, as it is one of the oldest anti-heroic stories one can think of. Tristan would be another, but that is tragedy, this is comedy.

[YesNo]

Interesting portrayal of Byron, JBI. The contradictions likely enhance the comedy. I'll keep in mind the "mix of romantic and classical" when reading this further.

Based on the rhyme in the first stanza that you mentioned it seems that "Juan" is pronounced with two syllables that rhyme with "true one". Is "Ju-an" pronounced "You-one"? Or is the rhyme off somewhat? I would normally pronounce "Juan" using one syllable.

When searching for more information on Southey, I found the following by Peter Cochran which describes the antagonism between Southey and Byron illustrated with quotes from both of them: http://petercochran.files.wordpress....te-southey.pdf

If I read this correctly it looks like Southey said Byron was a member of the "Satanic School of Poetry" and Byron claimed to have hated Southey more than anyone else (with the exception of Lady Byron).

[JBI]

it's pronounced Juan like w-on. The fake rhyme is an ironic joke.

[Pierre Menard]

Unfortunately, I won't able to participate. My schedule over the next few weeks is just way too hectic to devote the time needed for it.

I will definitely follow the discussion though; interested to hear people's thoughts on the work.

[YesNo]

I'm thinking that of all the main characters in this first Canto, Don Juan seems to be the most innocent.

Julia was 23 years old and Juan 16 (LXIX) In some jurisdictions she might be guilty of statutory rape.

Then there is the side story involving Julia, her husband Alfonso and Juan's mother Inez which seems far worse than the adultery between Juan and Julia.

[stlukesguild]

I haven't been able to post much recently. My main computer is in the shop and I've been spending much of my time in the evening loading necessary programs and transferring files from my back-up hard-drives to a new laptop. I do hope to be able to spend some time reading Don Juan this weekend. Its been a good decade since I read it and I remember loving the work and Byron's most brilliant character... the narrator with all his marvelous digressions.

[YesNo]

I didn't think of the narrator as a character, but he is.

[Waldo]

"Hail Muse! et cetera.."

[Drkshadow03]

I haven't been able to post much recently. My main computer is in the shop and I've been spending much of my time in the evening loading necessary programs and transferring files from my back-up hard-drives to a new laptop. I do hope to be able to spend some time reading Don Juan this weekend. Its been a good decade since I read it and I remember loving the work and Byron's most brilliant character... the narrator with all his marvelous digressions.

So far the work isn't doing much for me. I'm on Canto 7. I think the parts I dislike the most are the narrator's many marvelous digressions.

[YesNo]

I realize I didn't like the digressions in Canto 1 when Byron satirized other poets of his time. They didn't seem to fit into the story as a whole, but if I think of the narrator as a character as stlukesguild suggested, I look at the narrator's digressions as somehow part of the story and try to make some overall sense out of it.

However, I don't think Byron consciously intended to create the narrator as a character and wonder if there is any overall unity that includes the digressions.