DON JUAN, an unfinished poem by Lord Byron, somewhat difficult to classify, since it may be treated as a narrative-satire, a comic epic, a novel in verse, or—to employ its au thor's amusing description — a "versified Au rora Borealis' There is little doubt that it is one of the most original, brilliant and entertain ing of modern books, fully entitled as such to the position given it by many readers and critics as the poet's masterpiece. From its first ap pearance, however, it has been severely cen sured by the more sedate and conventional por tions of the British and American reading pub lics, both on account of the licentiousness of sundry' scenes and passages and because of Byron's contemptuous and defiant attitude to ward many of the beliefs, customs and institu tions of sophisticated society. As one might naturally expect, the first objection is supported by the unprofitable use made of the poem by inexperienced readers and by persons of viti ated tastes, while the second objection has steadily lost force in more or less direct pro portion with the liberalizing of society. In deed, it may, be held with some justice that the apparently increasing appeal made by Byron and by this masterpiece of his maturer years to seasoned and somewhat disillusioned readers who have reached or passed their prime is largely due to those features of the ebullient performance that originally suggested. to con servative minds this second objection.
In length 'Don Juan) stands conspicuous among works in verse since it consists of 16 cantos and a fragment of a 17th, which ag gregate nearly 2,000 eight-lined stanzas (ottava rima) and make, with the included lyrics, one of which is the famous 'Isles of Greece,' a total of a little over 16,000 verses. It was com posed, with intermissions due to the remon strances of the Countess Guiccioli and to the hindering attitude taken by publisher and friends, during a period stretching from the autumn of 1818 to the spring of 1823 — that is, from shortly after the completion of the suc cessful 'Beppo,' which prompted the inception of 'Don Juan,' throughout the unregulated but far from unoccupied Italian years that saw the writing of 'Mazeppa,' of all the dramas save 'Manfred,' of 'The Vision of Judgment' and of several other important though less memor able poems. Publication was by instalments— Cantos I and II in July 1819; Cantos 111-V in August 1821; Cantos VI-VIII, with John Hunt as publisher of the remainder of the work in place of Murray, in July 1823; Cantos IX-XI and XII-XIV in August and December respec tively of the same year; and Cantos XV-XVI in March 1824. Thus a few weeks before Byron succumbed to fever at Mesolonghi, the world had before it all of his masterpiece save the scathing dedication to Southey, which was added in 1833 after prior circulation as a broad side, and the fragment first published in our own generation. If the speed of composition had not quickened—Cantos VI-XVI were written between the early summer of 1822 and the early spring of 1823, we should probably not have had the brilliant satire of English life contained in the closing cantos, and we might even not have had the superb siege of Ismail or the picture of Catherine and her court. This would have meant a 'Don Juan' consisting only of the Donna Julia, the Haidee and) the Gul beyaz episodes, with the vivid shipwreck thrown in for good measure — still a great poem doubtless, but one which would have left a more sinister impression of licentious wayward ness than the full poem leaves.
The chief literary influences discernible in the work — aside from Byron's continuous and apt use of details derived from his wide read ing and apart from his employment of special sources of information in the shipwreck and siege cantos kre the "Whistlecraft* cantos of John Hookham Frere, which had prompted the writing of and the work of the Ital ian humorous-romantic poets Berni and Pulci.
His best editor, Mr. Coleridge, thinks •that knew little of the Spanish "Don Juan,'" the legendary titanic embodiment of evil. The name, however, was attractive and suitable to a work that started off as a story of adultery in Spain. Once under way Byron seems to have had no settled plan except to take his hero on a tour—amorous, adventurous, humorous— through a great part or the whole of Europe. Spain, a Greek island, Constantinople and Is mail, Russia and England he lived to compass; one of his letters mentions projected escapades in Italy and Germany; perhaps, if he had lived to write the 100 cantos he jestingly planned, he would have ventured — with his extraordi nary creative energy, versatility and daring to embark his hero for the America of Wash ington and Daniel Boone, already praised in the poem; but all that is certain and important in this connection is that Byron made a not inconsiderable beginning of a comic epic, or whatever else we may call it, of many charac ters and scenes which, though frustrated by his death, became his chief and a real contribu tion to the "criticism of life, It is not the highest criticism of life that we encounter in 'Don Juan,' but it is a criticism that has its value to mature and catholic readers, a crit icism presented through poetry that yields to nothing else in modern English literature in romantic passion and sentiment, in spirited ac tion, in idyllic charm, in sham-annihilating sa tire, in cleverness and daring, and last — but far from least — in sustained energy and sin cerity of creation, in unflagging carrying-power. His correspondence shows that he knew better than the naturally timid Murray and some of his other friends what superb poetry he was putting into "Donny Johnny,* as he playfully christened his medley. He knew that it would be "known by and by for what it is intended —a Satire on abuses of the present states of Society, and not an eulogy of vice.* We may dissent when he goes on to say that he cannot help it if it is "now and then voluptuous*; but it is at least time for us to recognize that such contemporaries as Goethe, Sir Walter Scott, Shelley and Washington Irving were far sighted and healthy-minded in praising Won Juan' highly, and Southey the reverse in con sidering it "a foul blot* on English literature and "an act of high treason* to English* poetry. Surely the world would be loth to spare such satire as "Oh for a power to chant Thy praise, Hypocrisy* (X, 34), such senti ment as "'Tis sweet to hear* (I, 122), such idyllic beauty as is contained in the stanzas beginning "They looked up to the sky* (II, 185), such description as that of Lambro's home-coming (III, 27) praised by S. T. Cole ridge, and of Newstead Abbey (XIII, 55), such effective denunciation of war as in the entire eighth canto — but to attempt to catalogue the great passages of this poem would be absurd. One stanza (XV, 99) "Between two worlds Life hovers like a star') would almost suffice of itself to make 'Don Juan) seem quite as much the work of a true poet as every page makes it seem the work of a shrewd man of the world. Probably no other modern long poem so brilliantly sustained; no other charac terized by such infinite and unstaled variety.