The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 7 | Page 4

Italian models, Berni and Pulci (see "Introduction to _Beppo_," _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 155-158; and "Introduction to _The Morgante Maggiore_" ibid., pp. 279-281); and, again, the success of _Beppo_, and, still more, a sense of inspiration and the conviction that he had found the path to excellence, suggested another essay of the _ottava rima_, a humorous poem "_�� la Beppo_" on a larger and more important scale. If Byron possessed more than a superficial knowledge of the legendary "Don Juan," he was irresponsive and unimpressed. He speaks (letter to Murray, February 16, 1821) of "the Spanish tradition;" but there is nothing to show that he had read or heard of Tirso de Molina's (Gabriel Tellez) _El Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra_ (_The Deceiver of Seville and the Stone Guest_), 1626, which dramatized the "ower true tale" of the actual Don Juan Tenorio; or that he was acquainted with any of the Italian (e.g. _Convitato di Pietra_, del Dottor Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, Fiorentino [see L. Allacci _Dramaturgia_, 1755, 4o, p. 862]) or French adaptations of the legend (_e.g_. _Le Festin de Pierre, ou le fils criminel_, Tragi-com��die de De Villiers, 1659; and Moli��re's _Dom Juan, ou Le Festin de Pierre_, 1665). He had seen (_vide post_, p. 11, note 2) Delpini's pantomime, which was based on Shadwell's?_Libertine_, and he may have witnessed, at Milan or Venice, a performance of Mozart's _Don Giovanni_; but in taking Don Juan for his "hero," he took the name only, and disregarded the "terrible figure" "of the Titan of embodied evil, the likeness of sin made flesh" (see _Selections from the Works of Lord Byron_, by A.C. Swinburne, 1885, p. xxvi.), "as something to his purpose nothing"!
Why, then, did he choose the name, and what was the scheme or motif of his poem? Something is to be gathered from his own remarks and reflections; but it must be borne in mind that he is on the defensive, and that his half-humorous paradoxes were provoked by advice and opposition. Writing to Moore (September 19, 1818), he says, "I have finished the first canto ... of a poem in the style and manner of _Beppo_, encouraged by the good success of the same. It is ... meant to be a little quietly facetious upon every thing. But I doubt whether it is not--at least as far as it has gone--too free for these very modest days." The critics before and after publication thought that _Don Juan_ _was_ "too free," and, a month after the two first cantos had been issued, he writes to Murray (August 12, 1819), "You ask me for the plan of Donny Johnny; I _have_ no plan--I _had_ no plan; but I had or have materials.... You are too earnest and eager about a work never intended to be serious. Do you suppose that I could have any intention but to giggle and make giggle?--a playful satire, with as little poetry as could be helped, was what I meant." Again, after the completion but before the publication of Cantos III., IV., V., in a letter to Murray (February 16, 1821), he writes, "The Fifth is so far from being the last of _Don Juan_, that it is hardly the beginning. I meant to take him the tour of Europe, with a proper mixture of siege, battle, and adventure, and to make him finish as Anacharsis Cloots in the French Revolution.... I meant to have made him a _Cavalier Servente_ in Italy, and a cause for a divorce in England, and a Sentimental 'Werther-faced' man in Germany, so as to show the different ridicules of the society in each of these countries, and to have displayed him gradually _gat��_ and _blas��_, as he grew older, as is natural. But I had not quite fixed whether to make him end in Hell, or in an unhappy marriage, not knowing which would be the severest."
Byron meant what he said, but he kept back the larger truth. Great works, in which the poet speaks _ex animo_, and the man lays bare the very pulse of the machine, are not conceived or composed unconsciously and at haphazard. Byron did not "whistle" _Don Juan_ "for want of thought." He had found a thing to say, and he meant to make the world listen. He had read with angry disapproval, but he had read, Coleridge's _Critique on_ [Maturin's] _Bertram_ (_vide post_, p. 4, note 1), and, it may be, had caught an inspiration from one brilliant sentence which depicts the Don Juan of the legend somewhat after the likeness of Childe Harold, if not of Lord Byron: "Rank, fortune, wit, talent, acquired knowledge, and liberal accomplishments, with beauty of person, vigorous health, ... all these advantages, elevated by the habits and sympathies of noble birth and natural character, are ...