Don Juan-Canto I

Lord Byron's, 'Canto I," is an exploration of the life of the famous Don Juan.
This peom is presented with a more satiric flavor rather than a simple biography.
Byron reverses the originial story of Don Juan by illustrating Juan as a man
easinly prevoked by women, instead of him being a womanizer. In "Canto I," Byron makes it clear that Don Juan is of somoeone that is in a category of himself; he is
a hero for a reason and easily remembered, but unlike the others (Napolean, Prince Ferdinand, etc) he is never forgotten. This is possible because so many others have written their own versions of Don Juan's being, with Byron's being one of the most popular. It appears to be the most popular because he speaks of Juan's being as if he were there nd knew everything that was going on in his life.

Byron presents in the beginning of the poem, that the poem will not be filled with any imagination or philosophical references as Wordsworth did in his poems. Therefore, 'Canto I" appears to be a comparison poem between Lord Byron vs. Wordsworth vs. "The rest of them". Previously, we have focused on Wordsworth analysis of Nature and it's philosophical effects, but Byron takes this poem into another direction filled with satire and amusement, peripeteia, and discoveries.

Don Juan's father, Don Jose, is the most amusing character in Lord Byron's "Canto I"
because, for one, he has the smallest reference in the poem that is filled with a lot of interesting characterisitics; they describe the affects and the emotions that each character feels in the poem, and the outcome on young Don Juan at the time.

"For Inez called some druggists and physicians
And tried to prove her loving lord was mad,
But as he had some lucid intermissions,
She next decided he was only bad...

She kept a journal, where his faults were noted,
And opened certain trunks of books and letter,
All which might, if occasion served, be quoted."

Stanza 27 and 28 exhibits the extreme amusement that Don Jose brought to the poem
as a chracter. Women usually keep a journal not solely to talk about the things that that there husband or loved ones do wrong, but to discuss dreams and goals
and admirations. Don Juan had his own journal hahahahaha! But in the reality of
the story of Don Juan, his father's characterisitics are embedded in Juan as he
begins to mature and adventures life on his own.

We discover that Don Juan was taught by his mother after his father died of a disease solely based on morals. i belive that this is why the poem has no distinction of imagination in it--because his mother prohibited it. She felt it
was necessary for Juan to expereince life just as it is, and learn about the things
that he could be dealing with in the future. I credit Lord Bryon for stanzas 90 to 96 becuase it is filled with Juan's own being; he is now teaching HIMSELF how to think and imagine. This is in reference to Wordsworth who speaks about imagination, growth, and maturity throughout his poems. In the same breath, I find it ironic that Bryon states that the way that Don Juan begins to approach himself and become his own person, is not because of Wordsworth's poems that he read or anyone else's, but because he was becomeing more educated and was trying to escape a world that he did not want to be in any longer.

It is known that Don Juan is of the high class, as he received his father's inheritance when he died, but it leaves the reader wondering "why would Lord Byron create a poem that reverses the assumed lifestyle that a nobleman lived? Why is Juan being womanized but is not the womanizer? Why does Bryon not show the rebellious eager side of Juan to defy his mother's teachers and be his own man--be like his father?" I suppose in a way these questions are answered becuase Juan does begin to imagine, even though Byron made it clear in the beginning of the poem that there would not be any distinction of imagination as well as his mother. But I believe that there is a deeper meaning to this purpose, whether Lord Byron was simply tired of the same old story being told the same old way, or he himslef imagined being Don Juan and created his own destinations for the character in third person.