Life the Universe and Everything

Lord Byron seems to use "Don Juan" as a device to comment on life the universe and everything. The form of an epic poem is quite appropriate for this task, and with it he manages, in just the first thirty pages to comment on everything from gossip to the church. And while the poem puts on the mask of an epic, Lord Byron only sporadically produces anything that can be construed as plot. His great epic feels more like a great farce.

The epic poem is ideal for Lord Byron's task of discussing every social topic he can possibly think of, because it is a form that is intended to have far reaching scope. Byron turns that idea upon it's head by making the poem socially extravagant rather than geographically so. His characters exist on extremes of personality. For example Don Juan's mother is morally incorruptible, and Don Juan himself as a young man knows absolutely nothing of sex. Then there are the characters of Julia and Alfonso, who exists on opposite ends of the age spectrum. Byron further turns the epic poem on it's head by focusing not on a hero of war, but instead on a hero of physical love. He even insults the epic poem by beginning "with the beginning". This comedic take on life the universe and everything certainly lacks the tone, if not the breadth, of an epic poem.

While the poem is ironically that of an epic, it's main substance is personal commentary by the author, which , while amusing, makes for jarring and inconsistent story telling. It also allows Byron to comment on every nuance of the human condition and ridicule it. Nothing is sacred in his eyes. His main topics of discourse and derision are other poets and religion, both of which he finds ridiculous and lacking in sense. In short, he seems to have an opinion on everything, and that opinion is almost always negative.

It is unclear weather or not Byron intends his audience to take anything he is saying to heart.His comical and colorful commentary lacks the sage like wisdom of Shakespeare's fools, as well as the spiteful irony of Swift's " A Modest Proposal". Perhaps the opaqueness of the meaning behind this work is the true stroke of poetry that keep readers intrigued. (And of course the forbidden subject matter)