The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 6 — Story, Setting & Ideas

yron was a rapid as well as a voluminous writer. His _Tales_ were thrown off at lightning speed, and even his dramas were thought out and worked through with unhesitating energy and rapid achievement. Nevertheless, the composition of his two great poems was all but coextensive with his poetical life. He began the first canto of _Childe Harold_ in the autumn of 1809, and he did not complete the fourth canto till the spring of 1818. He began the first canto of _Don Juan_ in the autumn of 1818, and he was still at work on a seventeenth canto in the spring of 1823. Both poems were issued in parts, and with long intervals of unequal duration between the parts; but the same result was brought about by different causes and produced a dissimilar effect. _Childe Harold_ consists of three distinct poems descriptive of three successive travels or journeys in foreign lands. The adventures of the hero are but the pretext for the shifting of the diorama; whereas in _Don Juan_ the story is continuous, and the scenery is exhibited as a background for the dramatic evolution of the personality of the hero. _Childe Harold_ came out at intervals, because there were periods when the author was stationary; but the interruptions in the composition and publication of _Don Juan_ were due to the disapproval and discouragement of friends, and the very natural hesitation and procrastination of the publisher. Canto I. was written in September, 1818; Canto II. in December-January, 1818-1819. Both cantos were published on July 15, 1819. Cantos III., IV. were written in the winter of 1819-1820; Canto V., after an interval of nine months, in October-November, 1820, but the publication of Cantos III., IV., V. was delayed till August 8, 1821. The next interval was longer still, but it was the last. In June, 1822, Byron began to work at a sixth, and by the end of March, 1823, he had completed a sixteenth canto. But the publication of these later cantos, which had been declined by Murray, and were finally entrusted to John Hunt, was spread over a period of several months. Cantos VI., VII., VIII., with a Preface, were published July 15; Cantos IX., X., XI, August 29; Cantos XII., XIII., XIV., December 17, 1823; and, finally, Cantos XV., XVI., March 26, 1824. The composition of _Don Juan_, considered as a whole, synchronized with the composition of all the dramas (except _Manfred_) and the following poems: _The Prophecy of Dante_, (the translation of) _The Morgante Maggiore, The Vision of Judgment, The Age of Bronze_, and _The Island_.

There is little to be said with regard to the "Sources" of _Don Juan_. Frere's _Whistlecraft_ had suggested _Beppo_, and, at the same time, had prompted and provoked a sympathetic study of Frere's Italian models, Berni and Pulci (see "Introduction to _Beppo_," _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 155-158; and "Introduction to _The Morgante Maggiore_" ibid., pp. 279-281); and, again, the success of _Beppo_, and, still more, a sense of inspiration and the conviction that he had found the path to excellence, suggested another essay of the _ottava rima_, a humorous poem "_à la Beppo_" on a larger and more important scale. If Byron possessed more than a superficial knowledge of the legendary "Don Juan," he was irresponsive and unimpressed. He speaks (letter to Murray, February 16, 1821) of "the Spanish tradition;" but there is nothing to show that he had read or heard of Tirso de Molina's (Gabriel Tellez) _El Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra_ (_The Deceiver of Seville and the Stone Guest_), 1626, which dramatized the "ower true tale" of the actual Don Juan Tenorio; or that he was acquainted with any of the Italian (e.g. _Convitato di Pietra_, del Dottor Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, Fiorentino [see L. Allacci _Dramaturgia_, 1755, 4º, p. 862]) or French adaptations of the legend (_e.g_. _Le Festin de Pierre, ou le fils criminel_, Tragi-comédie de De Villiers, 1659; and Molière's _Dom Juan, ou Le Festin de Pierre_, 1665). He had seen (_vide post_, p. 11, note 2) Delpini's pantomime, which was based on Shadwell's _Libertine_, and he may have witnessed, at Milan or Venice, a performance of Mozart's _Don Giovanni_; but in taking Don Juan for his "hero," he took the name only, and disregarded the "terrible figure" "of the Titan of embodied evil, the likeness of sin made flesh" (see _Selections from the Works of Lord Byron_, by A.C. Swinburne, 1885, p. xxvi.), "as something to his purpose nothing"!