Lord Byron’s “Don Juan” is a satirical poem based on the legend of Don Juan, the famous libertine character known for his ability to seduce women. However, in Lord Byron’s telling, Don Juan’s womanizing is due more to his inability to refuse the advances of women than his ability to seduce them. Left unfinished upon his death in 1824, “Don Juan” is one of the widest-read poems in the English language.
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Lord Byron was an English poet and the most infamous of the English Romantics, glorified for his immoderate ways in both love and money. Benefitting from a privileged upbringing, Byron published the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage upon his return from his Grand Tour in 1811, and the poem was received with such acclaim that he became the focus of a public mania. Following the dissolution of his short-lived marriage in 1816, Byron left England amid rumours of infidelity, sodomy, and incest.In self-imposed exile in Italy Byron completed Childe Harold and Don Juan. He also took a great interest in Armenian culture, writing of the oppression of the Armenian people under Ottoman rule; and in 1823, he aided Greece in its quest for independence from Turkey by fitting out the Greek navy at his own expense.Two centuries of references to, and depictions of Byron in literature, music, and film began even before his death in 1824.