Question

Don Juan

Accepted Answer

Byron's unfinished epic satire in ottava rima
16 cantos
1819 24
A passive if unprincipled, inocent who learns through the veraity of his complex International experience
Storm and subsequent cannibalism
Haidee the daughter of a pirate

Don Juan (Spanish pronounced [doŋˈxwan]), also known as Don Giovanni (Italian), is a legendary, fictional libertine. Famous versions of the story include a 17th-century play, El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest) by Tirso de Molina, and an 18th-century opera, Don Giovanni, with music by Mozart and a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte.

By linguistic extension from the name of the character, "Don Juan" has become a generic expression for a womanizer, and stemming from this, Don Juanism is a non-clinical psychiatric descriptor.

Synopsis
The Argument
The story, told in seventeen cantos, begins with the birth of Don Juan. As a young man he is precocious sexually, and has an affair with a friend of his mother. The husband finds out, and Don Juan is sent away to Cádiz. On the way, he is shipwrecked, survives and meets the daughter of a pirate, whose men sell Don Juan as a slave. A young woman, who is a member of a sultan's harem, sees that this slave is purchased. She disguises him as a girl and sneaks him into her chambers. Don Juan escapes, joins the Russian army and rescues a Muslim girl named Leila. Don Juan meets Catherine the Great, who asks him to join her court. Don Juan becomes sick, is sent to England, where he finds someone to watch over Leila. Next, a few adventures involving the aristocracy of Britain ensue. The poem ends with Canto XVII.

Canto I
Don Juan lives in Seville with his father José and his mother Donna Inez. Donna Julia, 23 years old and married to Don Alfonso, begins to desire Don Juan when he is 16 years old. Despite her attempt to resist, Julia begins an affair with Juan. Julia falls in love with Juan. Don Alfonso, suspecting that his wife may be having an affair, bursts into their bedroom followed by a "posse concomitant" but they do not find anything suspicious upon first searching the room, for Juan was hiding in the bed. However, when Alfonso returns on his own, he comes across Juan's shoes and a fight ensues. Juan escapes, however. In order to avoid the rumors and bad reputation her son has brought upon himself, Inez sends him away to travel, in the hopes that he develops better morals, while Julia is sent to a nunnery.

Canto II
Canto II describes how Juan goes on a voyage from Cádiz with servants and his tutor Pedrillo. Juan is still in love with Julia, and after a period of seasickness, a storm sinks the ship. The crew climb into a long boat, but soon run out of food. The crew decide to draw lots in order to choose who will be eaten. Juan's tutor Pedrillo is chosen after Juan's dog has also been eaten. However, those that eat Pedrillo go mad and die. Juan is the sole survivor of the journey; he eventually makes it onto land at Cyclades in the Aegean. Haidée and her maid Zoe discover Juan and care for him in a cave by the beach. Haidée and Juan fall in love despite the fact that neither can understand each other's language. Haidée's father Lambro is a "fisherman" and pirate who makes money from capturing slaves.

Canto III
Canto III is essentially a long digression from the main story in which Byron, in the style of an epic catalogue, describes Haidée and Don Juan's celebrations. The islanders believe Haidée's father, Lambro, has died, but he returns and witnesses these revels. Towards the end of the canto, Byron insults his contemporaries William Wordsworth, Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In this latter section is "The Isles of Greece", a section numbered differently from the rest of the canto with a different verse, which explores Byron's views on Greece's status as a "slave" to the Ottoman Empire.

Canto IV
Haidée and Juan wake to discover that Haidée's father, Lambro, has returned. Lambro confronts Juan and attacks him with the aid of his pirate friends. Haidée despairs at losing her lover and eventually dies of a broken heart with her unborn child still in her womb.

Juan is sent away on a ship and ends up at a slave market in Constantinople.

Canto V
Juan is in the slave market. He converses with an Englishman, telling of his lost love, whereas the more experienced John says he had to run away from his third wife. A black eunuch from the seraglio, Baba, buys Juan and John, and takes the infidels to the palace. He takes them to an inner chamber, where he insists that Don Juan dress as a woman and threatens him with castration if he resists. Finally, Juan is brought into an imperial hall to meet the sultana, Gulbeyaz, a 26-year-old beauty who is the sultan's fourth, last and favourite wife. Full of stubborn pride, he refuses to kiss her foot and finally compromises by kissing her hand. She had spotted Juan at the market and had asked Baba to secretly purchase him for her, despite the risk of discovery by the sultan. She wants Juan to "love" her, and throws herself on his breast. But he still has thoughts of Haidée and spurns her advances, saying "The prisoned eagle will not pair, nor I/Serve a sultana's sensual phantasy." She is taken aback, enraged, and thinks of having him beheaded, but breaks out in tears instead. Before they can progress further in their relationship, Baba rushes in to announce that the Sultan is coming: "The sun himself has sent me like a ray/To hint that he is coming up this way." The sultan arrives, preceded by a parade of damsels, eunuchs, etc.. Looking around, he takes note of the attractive Christian woman (Juan), expressing regret that a mere Christian should be so pretty (Juan is a giaour, or non-Muslim). Byron comments on the necessity to secure the chastity of the women in these unhappy climes — that "wedlock and a padlock mean the same."

Canto VI
The sultan retires with Gulbeyaz. Juan, still dressed as a woman, is taken to the overcrowded seraglio. He is asked to share a couch with the young and lovely 17-year-old Dudù. When asked what his name is, Don Juan calls himself Juanna. She is a "kind of sleepy Venus ... very fit to murder sleep... Her talents were of the more silent class... pensive..." She gives Juanna a chaste kiss and undresses. The chamber of odalisques is asleep at 3 AM. Dudù suddenly screams, and awakens agitated, while Juanna still lies asleep and snoring. The women ask the cause of her scream, and she relates a suggestive dream of being in a wood like Dante, of dislodging a reluctant golden apple clinging tenaciously to its bough (which at last willingly falls), of almost biting into the forbidden fruit when a bee flies out from it and stings her to the heart. The matron of the seraglio decides to place Juanna with another odalisque, but Dudù begs to keep her in her own bed, hiding her face in Juanna's breast. The poet is at a loss to explain why she screamed.

In the morning, the sultana asks Baba to tell her how Don Juan passed the night. He tells of "her" stay in the seraglio, but carefully omits details about Dudù and her dream. But the sultana is suspicious nevertheless, becomes enraged, and instructs Baba to have Dudù and Juan killed in the usual manner (drowning). Baba pleads with her that killing Juan will not cure what ails her. The sultana summons Dudù and Juan. Just before the canto ends, the narrator explains that the "Muse will take a little touch at warfare."

Canto VII
Juan and John Johnson have escaped with two women from the seraglio, and arrive during the siege of Ismail (historically 1790), a Turkish fort at the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea. Field Marshal Suvaroff, an officer in the Russian army, is preparing for an all-out final assault against the besieged fortress. The battle rages. He has been told to "take Ismail at whatever price" by Prince Potemkin, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army. The Christian empress Catherine II is the Russian head-of-state. John Johnson appears to Suvaroff (with whom he has previously served in battle at Widdin) and introduces his friend Juan—both are ready to join the fight against the "pagan" Turks. Suvaroff is unhappy with the women the two men brought, but they state that they are the wives of other men, and that the women aided their escape. Suvaroff consents to the women staying.

Juan Don Canto Haidée Women Baba Dudù Russian