Byron, Don Juan (1818-23)
Editor's Preface:
690:
Poem Proper:
- What are the characteristics of the
traditional epic poem? To what degree does Byron employ
them? Explain.
Dedication 
:
- What is the main point of this
Dedication?
Canto One:
- Is Don Juan portrayed in this Canto
as the seducer or the seduced? Explain.
700-1:
- Explain the discussion of sultry climate in stanza 63.
702-3:
- Explain Donna Julia's strategy for fighting her
attraction to Juan.
716:
- Describe the distinction between men and women's love
made in stanza 194.
718:
- How, according to the speaker, will
this epic differ from traditional ones?
720:
- Explain the discussion of age in stanza 213.
721:
- Explain the discussion of fame in stanzas 218 and 219.
Other Discussion Questions:
Dedication:
- Who is Bob Southey (1)?
- Who are Scott, Rogers,
Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe? Explain lines 55-56.
- Explain lines 135-36.
692:
- Explain the speaker's discussion of digression in
l.51-52.
694:
- Explain the discussion of intellectual ladies in
1.175-76.
695:
- How does the narrator characterize Donna Inez?
- Explain the autobiographical significance of stanzas 27 and
28.
696:
- Why would someone need to scale a nunnery (1.304)?
- Why does Donna Inez dread "the Mythology" (1.328).
698:
- Explain the discussion of editions in stanza 44.
699:
- Explain the narrator's self-conscious remark in 1.440 (see
also 1.671-72).
702:
- Explain the reference to the Virgin Mary in 1.599-600.
704:
- How does solitude function for Juan in stanza 90?
- Explain Byron's references to Wordsworth and Coleridge in
stanzas 90 and 91.
705-6:
- Explain the description of Love in 1.843-48.
706:
- Explain the description of the moon in stanzas 113 and
114.
707:
- Does Julia really consent (1.935-36)? Explain.
- Explain the discussion of the sweetness of love in stanza
127.
708:
- Why does Don Alonzo bring "more than half the city"
(1.1090) to search his wife's bedroom for her lover?
709-10:
- Why does Julia express such outrage when Alfonso searches
for her lover?
716:
- Why is Julia's heart "the victim" (1.1532)?
717-18:
- Describe the discussion of future cantos in stanza 199.
719:
- Why is Byron parodying the Ten Commandments in stanzas
205-206?
720:
- Explain: "Oh! never more, my heart. / Canst thou be
my sole world, my universe!" (1.1713-14).
722:
- Why does Byron quote Southey at the end of the canto?
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