The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 by Lord Byron
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page 7 of 1010 (00%)
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_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"! |
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