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Alex Park Diss After Defense 1013 BYRON’S DON JUAN: FORMS OF PUBLICATION, MEANINGS, AND MONEY A Dissertation by JAE YOUNG PARK Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2011 Major Subject: English Byron’s Don Juan: Forms of Publication, Meanings, and Money Copyright 2011 Jae Young Park BYRON’S DON JUAN: FORMS OF PUBLICATION, MEANINGS, AND MONEY A Dissertation by JAE YOUNG PARK Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved by: Chair of Committee, Terence Hoagwood Committee Members, Margaret Ezell Clinton Machann James M. Rosenheim Head of Department, Nancy Warren December 2011 Major Subject: English iii ABSTRACT Byron’s Don Juan: Forms of Publication, Meanings, and Money. (December 2011) Jae Young Park, B.A., Sungkyunkwan University; M.A., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Terence Hoagwood This dissertation examines Byron’s Don Juan and his attitude towards profits from the copyright money for publishing his poems. Recent studies on Don Juan and Byron have paid great attention to the poem especially in terms of the author’s status as an unprecedented noble literary celebrity. Thus the hermeneutics of the poem has very often had a tendency to bind itself within the biographical understanding of the poet’s socio-political practices. It is true that these studies are meaningful in that they highlighted and reconsidered the significance of the author’s unique life so as to illustrate biographical and historical contexts of this Romantic text. Admitting the significance of the biographical approach, however, the current dissertation also argues that an interpretation of a literary work should consider a number of outside influences that affect the meaning of a text, which is in and of itself a creation of historical, political, economic, and material aspects of a specific time and place, not merely of an individual author. After the theoretical background suggested in Chapter I, Chapter II emphasizes the history of the publication of the first two cantos and investigates John Murray’s iv publishing practices. Chapter III addresses some of the external influences on the reading of Don Juan to show that non-political content of the early five cantos came to be treated as politically radical by the voluntary and involuntary association of Byron and his work with radical publishers such as Leigh Hunt and William Hone. Chapter IV is a study of the new cantos of Don Juan (from the sixth canto). Focusing on Byron’s political stance which gradually developed from his early liberalism into a more radical activism, this chapter explores Percy Shelley’s influence on Byron’s political ideas, the new cantos of Don Juan, and Byron’s use of radical satire to instigate the fight against tyranny. Chapter V investigates Byron’s attitude towards the profits he earned from the copyright of his poems to argue that Byron’s attitude towards his brain-money gradually changed from an ambiguous position to a strong insistence on obtaining what he perceived to be fair payments for his poems. v DEDICATION For my father, Hee-Yong Park, for his patience and support, my mother, the late Chun-Ok Lee, for her everlasting love, and my fiancée, Hyeon-Sil Geum, for her true love. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have completed this dissertation without the guidance of the following mentors. I want to give special thanks to Dr. Terence Hoagwood, my committee chair, who has guided my studies for almost ten years. I also want to thank my committee members for their guidance and support throughout the course of this research. Finally, I want to thank Il-Yeong Kim, professor in Department of English Language and Literature at Sungkyunkwan University, who has been a wonderful mentor since 1993. Peter Cochran, John Beckett, and other members in the International Byron Society kindly answered my questions concerning Byron’s financial situations. I appreciate their informative replies. Thanks also go to my colleagues, the department faculty, and staff for making my time at Texas A&M University a great experience. In particular, Dongshin Yi, Byoung Chun Min, and Yonggi Kim constantly encouraged me during difficult times. Rochelle Bradley read and commented on my dissertation a number of times. I also want to thank Paulette Lesher for helping me with a number of administrative affairs quickly and effectively. I also want to extend my gratitude to The Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M for the financial support for my archival research in Britain in 2009. My sincere thanks to the librarians and curators including Boyd J. Conerway at Evans Library, Texas A&M, David McClay and Rachel Beatty at the John Murray Archive in the National Library of Scotland, and the librarians in the upper reading room of the Bodleian Library in Oxford University. Last but not least, I am deeply indebted to my family and fiancée in Korea. vii ABBREVIATIONS BinE Samuel Chew, Byron in England: His Fame and After-fame. New York: Russell & Russell, 1965. Biography Leslie A. Marchand, Byron: A Biography. 3 vols. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1957. BL The British Library, London. BLJ Lord Byron’s Letters and Journals. Ed. Leslie A. Marchand. 13 vols. London: John Murray, 1973-94. BOD The Bodleian Library, Oxford. CPW Lord Byron. The Complete Poetical Works. Ed. Jerome J. McGann. 7 vols. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1980-92. EBSR Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, A Satire. London: Printed for James Cawthorn, 1809. “Impact” William St Clair, “The Impact of Byron’s Writings: An Evaluative Approach.” Byron: Augustan and Romantic. Ed. Andrew Rutherford. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. 1-25. LJM Andrew Nicholson, ed. The Letters of John Murray to Lord Byron. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2007. NLS National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. RNRP William St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. Smiles Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and His Friends: Memoir and viii Correspondence of the late John Murray, with An Account of the Origin and Progress of the House, 1768-1843. 2 vols. London: John Murray, 1891. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................. iii DEDICATION .......................................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... vi ABBREVIATIONS................................................................................................... vii TABLE OF CONTENTS.......................................................................................... ix LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................................... xi LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... xii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: “GO, LITTLE BOOK—GO THY WAYS”......... 1 II SIZE MATTERS: “THE CURSED UNSALEABLE SIZE” COMPLICATING THE PUBLICATION HISTORY OF DON JUAN .................................................................................................... 11 III RADICALIZING THE EARLY CANTOS OF DON JUAN: LEIGH HUNT AND WILLIAM HONE .......................................................... 32 3.1. Early Reviews vs. Leigh Hunt Advocating Byron.................. 32 3.2. William Hone Exploiting Don Juan ....................................... 49 IV “THROW AWAY THE SCABBARD”: DON JUAN, A RADICAL TEXT.................................................................................................... 83 4.1. The Radical Influence of Percy Bysshe Shelley on the Writing of Don Juan ............................................................... 85 4.2. Byron’s Radical Use of Satire................................................. 102 4.3. Byron’s Radical Potential........................................................ 110 4.4. Byron’s New Experiments with Don Juan ............................. 121 x CHAPTER Page V “REMIT MY BRAIN-MONEY”: BYRON’S CHANGING ATTITUDE TOWARDS COPYRIGHT MONEY.............................. 147 5.1. Byron in England: His Troubles and Ambivalent Attitude Regarding Copyright Money................................................... 150 5.2. Byron Abroad: Becoming a Professional Poet Writing for Money...................................................................................... 180 VI CONCLUSION.................................................................................... 212 WORKS CITED........................................................................................................ 219 APPENDIX A .......................................................................................................... 237 APPENDIX B .......................................................................................................... 239 VITA ......................................................................................................................... 241 xi LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1 The back-matter advertisement of Byron’s poems Murray put forth in the market in November 1816. (From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto the Third (1816).............................................................................. 28 Figure 2 The back-matter advertisement of Byron’s poems
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