The mock epic poem Don Juan is considered by many scholars to be Lord Byron's greatest work. What are your thoughts as to the literary worth of the first two cantos that we have read? Are they good poetry?
Lord Byron's epic poem Don Juan is certainly unique. One of the many appealing qualities to it is the fact that Lord Byron uses a lot of parallelism between his life and that of Don Juan in the poem. Had it wasn't assigned to me from before to read the biography of Lord Byron, I wouldn't have recognized the parallelism. These similarities between the two personalities include the various amounts of sexual intercourses and death of their father at such a young age.
Lord Byron uses a lot of allusions, both historical and religious. In the cantos, historical references include mentioning Nelson, "Britannia's god of war", "Banquo's monarchs", and "great Caesar...Titus the master, Anthony tha slave,...". All these figures have some sort of historical importance either as a warrior or leader, which gives the poem more flavor with the description used. Numerous references to Eve in both the cantos are used such as, "Don Jose, like a lineal son of Eve"(Canto the First-Stanza 18) and "As when she rose upon us like an Eve"(Canto the Second-Stanza 213). It can be deduced that with all the references to Eve, Lord Byron is ridiculing the idea of religion and Genesis. With these descriptions, it is more vivid for the reader to visualize the poem and gives it more atmosphere.
It is very important to note that Don Juan is a mock poem. Lord Byron uses a lot of sarcastic language mocking many issues. One of the most mocked ideas is that of love. In Canto the Second, Stanza 205, it says, "Oh, Love! Thou art the very god of evil, /For after all, we cannot call thee devil." This part is self-explanatory describing the hypocrisy of "love". Certain examples show how Lord Byron is trying to also critisize society, but they are not as evident as in the rest of the cantos.
In comparison to Child Harold, I like Don Juan more. I feel as though Lord Byron depicts himself more in Don Juan than in Child Harold. Don Juan is original and that is probably all I can say. It tells a story of the main character, Don Juan, in the form of a poem, which isn't easy or used commonly.
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Well Beyhan, you certainly demonstrated that you did your research and took care of noting the important aspects of Byron's mock epic Don Juan. Everything you said was true, or atleast I agreed with you regarding what Don Juan consists of and Byron's literary technique. However, I'm not with you on the analyse, or basically what you understood from Byron's techniques. For example when you state that "it can be deduced that with all the references to Eve, Lord Byron is ridiculizing the idea of religion", I don't know that because Byron makes reference to Eve that he is necessarily mocking religion as a whole. Perhaps one reason he does this is to connect with the reader on an idea that is common to all, that is the story of Adam and Eve. Byron certainly didn't approve or support institutionalized religion, and he probably was in part making fun of the story of Eve in Don Juan, but from the references you gave, they don't strike me as particularily insulting in regards to religion.
Again, unlike what you stated, I think that Childe Harold is much more biographical than Don Juan, especially for the amount of material Childe Harold's pilgrammige contains in comparison to Don Juan. The latter rather conveyed Byron's ideas and criticism on society and other things.
Nonetheless, your opinion is just as valuable as mine, and factual wise, you were right on.
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