Don Juan is actually a rather flat character-he is young, of a sweet disposition, and simultaneously innocent and promiscuous.

Byron becomes more central to the poem than the young hero. Unfortunately, Byron died shortly after the publication of the last cantos and was therefore unable to complete the entire mock epic.Īs with Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, the protagonist, Don Juan, is often more a plot device than a character, as the narrator is subsumed into Byron himself.

The dedication, sixteen cantos, and fragmentary seventeenth canto make up the poem, which Byron insisted was unfinished. Analysisĭon Juan is written in groups of eight lines of iambic pentameter that follow an ABABABCC rhyme scheme, which is known as ottava rima. Thus begin a series of shorter adventures among the British aristocracy. There he finds a governess for the girl Leila. Don Juan so impresses the Czarina that she invites him to join her court.ĭon Juan then becomes ill and is sent to England as an ambassador from Russia. Petersburg, where Don Juan and his captive are presented to Catherine the Great. Don Juan almost immediately insults Gulbayaz by bedding one of her courtesans Gulbayaz threatens to have both offenders killed, but Don Juan manages to escape.ĭon Juan then joins the Russian army in its assault on Ismail there he proves himself an able warrior and rescues the Muslim girl Leila. She has him disguised as a girl and smuggled into her chambers. The lovely Gulbayaz, member of the Sultan’s harem, arranges for Don Juan’s purchase. Lambro’s men find both Haidee and Don Juan, who is captured and sold into slavery. Don Alfonso, Donna Julia’s husband, discovers the affair and Don Juan is sent to Cadiz.Įn route to Cadiz, Don Juan is shipwrecked, the only survivor of the vessel, and left alone until he encounters Haidee, daughter of the pirate Lambro. The child of Donna Inez and Don Jose of Seville, Don Juan is sexually precocious, having an affair with his mother’s best friend, Donna Julia. The narrative then begins with the birth of Don Juan. The narrator distances himself from these “great” men by insisting that his own muse is of a lesser nature, and so his verse will be lesser as well.

Don Juan begins with a dedication to Robert Southey and William Wordsworth-both famous poets of the time, whom Byron lampoons here.

George byron don juan