The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 7 | Page 4

entrusted to John Hunt, was spread over a period of
several months. Cantos VI., VII., VIII., with a Preface, were published
July 15; Cantos IX., X., XI, August 29; Cantos XII., XIII., XIV.,
December 17, 1823; and, finally, Cantos XV., XVI., March 26, 1824.
The composition of _Don Juan_, considered as a whole, synchronized
with the composition of all the dramas (except _Manfred_) and the
following poems: _The Prophecy of Dante_, (the translation of) _The
Morgante Maggiore, The Vision of Judgment, The Age of Bronze_,
and _The Island_.
There is little to be said with regard to the "Sources" of _Don Juan_.
Frere's _Whistlecraft_ had suggested _Beppo_, and, at the same time,
had prompted and provoked a sympathetic study of Frere's 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 "_à 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-comédie de De
Villiers, 1659; and Molière'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 _gâté_ and
_blasé_, 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