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THE MYTH OF THE COMMENDATORE IN THE LEGEND AND ITS REINTERPRETATION IN BYRON’S “DON JUAN”

Roxana Diana CRUCEANU [email protected] “Alma Mater” University, Sibiu, Romania

ABSTRACT Centred on the myth of the Commendatore in the Don Juan legend and Byron’s interpretation of this symbol in his “Don Juan”, the present analysis aims at demonstrating how the author reformed, yet did not abandon one of the most emblematic figures in literature. The Stone Guest, a commander returned from the dead to perform divine justice and castigate the sinner is turned upside down by Byron’s dandy genius. In traditional versions, the Commendatore, a knight and gentleman, is a righteous man who has the spiritual competence of judging the . In his poem, Byron decides to tell Don Juan’s story from the perspective of a seducer and fashionable, unlike traditional creators, who remain neutral and prefer the deus ex machine sort of sentence. Thus, he chooses to operate not with one, but with three commanders, who partially play the role of the traditional punisher, but are unable to reinstitute morality in the world because they are themselves flawed.

KEYWORDS: ethics, dandy mockery, commander, tradition, Don Juanism

1. Introduction and elsewhere, there is no doubt that this Although even nowadays – almost Don Juan appears to resemble very little – two centuries after its author died, leaving if at all – Tirso’s Molière’s or Mozart’s, the denouement of his Don a mystery – the three pillars of Don Juanism we will there is still much controversy in criticis m refer to here. whether Byron’s Don Juan should be However, whereas the addition of the considered within the coordinates of the main character and his life style to the legend or excluded completely, we believe canon of libertinism would be farfetched, that the poem can be interpreted as a non- the reading of the final Byronic conventional rewriting of the Don masterpiece in a Don Juanesque key is not Juanesque topos. Starting with the profile untenable. In other words, there is scarcely of the hero, continuing with the feminine any Don Juanism at the level of the hero, typologies and ending with the course of but the presence of the myth is felt at the events occurring in the amorous sphere level of the themes. Byron’s text

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encompasses more legendary elements opening the poem with the announcement than many researchers acknowledge. If of the ultimate punishment, reversing the these motifs are not remarked, it is because conventional order of the progress of action. of the package in which they are wrapped The simplest explanation for this poetic and delivered, a package with a sonorous device would be that he did not consider it name: dandyism combined with libertinism. necessary to keep the suspense of a story Recycling a scenario with the same which was no longer an enigma for the duels, the same es capades, the same public. Secondly, he may have altered the dialogue patterns between master and classic sequence so as to suggest that a butler, the same deus ex machina sort of different finale for Don Juan should be punishment, would have been against expected with this version, because if ‘we all Byron’s dandy nature, irrespective of the have seen him in the pantomime sent to the geniality of the rewriting. The kernel of devil’, then variation is required to avoid dandyism is after all modifying monotony. Thirdly, and perhaps most conventions in an original, striking significantly, Byron realized the importance manner. That is exactly Byron’s approach of a backward reading of the legend for the to the Don Juanesque invariants, which are clarification of the global sense and distorted heavily, satirized but not proposed a similar process for the proper abandoned. The proof that this Don Juan understanding of his own fiction. And, will be dandified is given by the author indeed, the last scenes are decisive for the himself, who declares ironically, with the circularity of the epic poem, for the zero dandiest talent for diminishing serious evolution of the hero, which is truly questions: “I’ll therefor e take our ancient ascertained only when the meeting with the friend Don Juan, / We all have seen him in ghost sends him back to infancy and the Pantomim e / Sent to the devil, imprisonment by women, canceling the somewhat ere his time” [1]. Reading these glamorous surface. A fourth motivation may lines means almost visualizing Byron in a be perceived as the auctorial desire to most impeccable dandy pose, with a remind the crucial moment of the play, sarcastic smile on the face, choosing Don which in his Don Juan will occur not merely Juan as a protagonist – not because he is once, but several times in different forms. To the best, but because there is such crisis of accomplish that, Byron does not operate heroes – while commenting on the most with a single commander, but with three, powerful message of the play and reducing who intervene more or less violently on it to the ambiguous expression ‘sent to the Juan, at essential turning points in his devil’. And to the devil he sends Don Juan existence. again, not in the concrete sense imposed The first is Alfonso, whose main by tradition, but in the other sense, the function, we opine, is his incapacity of abstract one, by demolishing him, along imposing the paternal authority upon the with one of the most powerful icons of the son and shattering the primal mother-son classic variants: the Commendatore. union. Yet, Alfonso’s task is double: he also interprets the commander, a role that 2. Byron’s Triad of Commanders cannot be doubted, although he plays it as Any approach to the legend’s badly as that of father to Juan. We argue invariants as perceived by Byron should that Alfonso cannot be contested in this perhaps start with the motif of the quality, because the essence of his problem commander, which normally emerges at is the same: an aristocrat, with an age the end to intermediate divine justice. suited for the Commendatore of tradition, Byron himself dictates this twist by is wronged by the seducer, deeply hurt in

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his honour and morally obliged to fight a then that person is Julia, who after having duel with the insulter. By keeping thes e “so viciously deceived herself with so central elements, the narrator is aw are of much talk about spiritual love should be the parallel that is impossible not to appear sent in a convent, where presumably she in the mind of his readers. Except that, the may contemplate the spiritual for ever” [5]. teller decides to laugh at the commander Again, consciously or not, Byron makes a and his intransigence, by demystifying a new allusion to and switch from tradition. serious figure with great dandy mockery. Julia’s living in a convent reminds an Alfonso is not Ana’s father, as it is the Elvira turned upside down, for, if case with Tirso and Mozart, but the Molière’s heroine is corrupted by Don husband of the less virtuous Julia. He does Juan to renounce monastic existence for not have to repair a rape, but an adultery, worldly pleasures, Julia is taken there to which was fully accepted by the unfaithful learn to be pious after having experienced wife, turned into the pursuer and sexual earthly corruption. Alfonso is permanently initiator of virgin Juan. Alfonso, on the removed from the plot, probably left to other hand, is very far from what the continue his romance with Dona Inez. Statue should represent. A knight and Thus, like Mozart, Byron precipitates gentleman, the Commmendatore is the the entrance of the commander and the embodiment of ethics and dignity, a consummation of the duel. And because this righteous man who has the spiritual Commendatore “in his dressing-gown” [6] competence of judging the sinner. Julia’s escapes death, Byron repeats the scene in husband is not surrounded by the same Canto IV with Lambro, who is much fitter degree of respectability. Quite the for the part than Alfonso. As Haslett [7] opposite, he is rather flawed, guilty of the notices, this time the rake – commander same violation of the laws of marriage, encounter mirrors the legend more exactly through his rumoured affair with Inez: because Lambro is the offended father “some people whisper […] / That Inez coming back from the dead. Indeed, his had, ere Don Alfonso’s marriage, / Forgot motivation is to annihilate Juan in the name with him the very prudent carriage” [2]. of his daughter’s lost virginity, which is a Ironically, Byron makes the progress from Alfonso’s rage of betrayed prosecutor as culpable as the condemned consort. And, it is also true that the pirate and consequently incapable of performing appears as if resurrected. What was not the revenge correctly. In this equation, remarked, and we find this aspect husband and wife, cheater and cheated are particularly revolutionary, is that, within the quits: “Julia in fact had tolerable same episode, he interprets the living grounds,/ Alfonso’s loves with Inez were Commendatore and the Stone Guest at once. well known” [3], comments the narrative Byron merged two distinct moments in a voice. That is why nobody is slain in this single unit through a clever Odyssean duel. A dead Alfonso, deprived of punitive artifice. After a delay on the sea, “a report potential, would not have been able to […] / Avouched his death […] / And put his return from the dead and drag the roué to house in mourning several weeks” [8], Hell. The repercussions Juan has to suffer which makes Lambro seem “risen from are reduced to some ridiculous wounds – death” [9] upon arrival. It is now, after the “blood (‘twas from the nose) began to absence and reappearance, that the armed flow” [4], the of running aw ay confrontation takes place, not before. With naked in the middle of the night, the Tirso or Mozart, the commander performs separation from Julia and a voyage abroad. twice: the first time when he is alive and If someone is castigated in this episode, fights for Ana, the second time, after a

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while, as a ghost sent to take the rake’s belong to, men of their word, each in his soul to Hell. Considered deceased, Lambro way. Lambro is in actual fact a sort of is symbolically both flesh and spectre and Commendatore through his office of head of acts in accordance. the island. His status of man-at-strife, Stepping in the palace, “lik e opposing the oppressive system of the Turks, Odysseus, Lambro finds his house usurped confers an aura of bravery and nobleness to by reveling strangers” [10], and, like a him. Due to his art of acting with “such true more modern Commmendatore, takes out breeding of a gentleman, / You never could his pistol, which replaces the spade. Juan divine his real thought” [14], an attitude that is not dared to fight a duel; instead he is reminds the constant courtesy of the Stone scornfully asked to surrender, which Guest in his dialogues with the sinner, represents a new modification of the Don culminating with the perfect politeness with Juanesque pattern. In Tirso’s play, as well which he offers the most awful dishes. as in M ozart’s opera, it is the commander Admirably moderated and self- who insists upon the fight, whereas Don controlled Lambro may be; honest he is not. Juan is not so eager to comply with it. In An ordinary fisherman, “though of men”, Da Ponte’s libretto, we even discover the [15] in his youth, he progressed and became a reason for this reluctance: his opponent is military man controlling a mini army, without perceived as an old man incapable of such leaving the illicit habits. His ‘job’ continues actions, a weak adversary who is doomed to be that of waiting for merchant vessels, from the outset, because he stands no confiscating their cargoes and selling crews chance in front of the much younger and plus passengers into slavery. His refinement stronger Don Juan. With Byron, the fool is is doubled by criminal life and ruthlessness: not the old man, who is accompanied by “he was the mildest mannered man / That “a thousand scimitars” [11], thus having ever scuttled ship or cut a throat” [16]. the power on his side, but Juan, who, In this context, the pirate is a sinner himself, although advised with a tone of “the principle of domination and earthly superiority: “young man, put up your silly corruption” [17], and therefore is not entitled sword” [12], declaims with pathos: “not to effectuate Don Juan’s crossing to Hell. while this arm is fr ee” [13]. Through this What he can accomplish is a terrestrial exchange of replies, the poet alludes to the punishment, with Juan shipped to the slave known dialogue between Ana’s father and market. Consequently, any concrete trace of the seducer before the struggle and the battle between the two is erased. If with assassination of the former. The vengeance Alfonso there was a mock fight, with Lambro of the Statue follows immediately, when any physical contact is effaced. The pirate’s Juan, though not sent into the fire of the hand does not touch Juan, who is annihilated, biblical Hell, is yet pushed into another hurt and bound by Lambro’s men. inferno: that of mercantilism, consumerism The last Commendatore fabricated and slavery, a vicious circle our hero will by Byron is the Duchess, a most no longer escape. unexpected and daring face of the Statue. Recapitulating briefly, Lambro’s After having been introduced with all the function of father to Haidèe, combined pre-requisites of a female libertine and with his staged death and revival constitute dandy, Fitz-Fulke surprises again as the the elements that transform the pirate into substitute of the male commander. the Commandatore. And there is another Doubtless, the Duchess is the utmost similitude which brings them together: dandification of the idea of spectral judge. they are knights, respected patriarchs, From her displayed licentiousness, to the representative figures for the systems they fact that she is a woman fulfilling a task

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ascribed to a man, and finishing with her “Byron’s treatment of the ghost-story is ‘trial’, – that enriches Don Juan with a new typically Don Juanesque; it is antisentimental erotic escapade instead of throwing him into and self-mocking, but it shows under a mask the demons’ eternal fire – everything points of skepticism, humor, and disillusionment, an to the auctorial wish of playing with the undeniable will to believe” [20]. moralizing message of the legend’s final act. Real or not, the phantom is released What Byron respects from the story into a climate that respects the sacred-profane more than in the previous two cases is alternation, not through a succession of connected to the number of the dead man’s decors revolving round the grave / chapel and apparitions. The Commendatore usually Don Juan’s home, but through the infusion of comes into sight three times, respecting the mysticism and urbanity within the same order sacred – profane – sacred [18]. With location. Norman Abbey is a monastery Mozart, there is a fusion between moment turned pleasure palace haunted by a relic of two and three; the second meeting is the monastic community dispossessed of capital for the rake. Byron also sticks to properties in favour of the Amundeville clan. the model of the double tête-à-tête between The Friar is “the spirit of these walls” [21] Juan and the ghost alias Fitz-Fulke, a which have witnessed both sacrality and supplementary indicator in support of the depravity. It is on the corridors of Norman poet’s familiarity with the opera. Alfonso Abbey that Juan initially glimpses the spectre too had rushed into Julia’s bedroom twice creeping along the halls. Unlike the still the same night, but the first intrusion was Statue in the cemetery, the monk walks. In not valid because he had not seen Juan and the other respects, the spectre imitates quite Juan had not seen him either from under faithfully the Commendatore, by being silent the sheets. With the Duchess, the two and looking at Juan with sparkling eyes: “He stages are clearly separated, occupying a moved as shadowy as the sisters weird, / But two day spam and there is action occurring slowly, and as he passed Juan by, / Glanced, between them, like in the myth. Bernard without pausing, on him a bright eye” [22]. Beatty suggests that the first encounter The common scenario, in which the famous may have been governed by the true Black invitation to supper should have followed, is Friar and only the second by Fitz-Fulke: spoilt at this point by Juan, who is too “if we attend to the narrative as closely as puzzled to utter it. The Gothic entrance of the Byron again requires us to, it is plain that ghost stepping in the moonlight, wrapped in a the first appearance of the ghost is cowl and dusky garb, is organized so as to authentic and the Duchess’s scheme is a frighten hero and reader alike. Without quick-witted improvisation in response to forgetting the ironic tone, Byron seems to this unforeseen occurrence. Where others finally give some credit to supernatural react with dread to the hunting, the sy mbols which “in the course of some six Duchess foresees mischief and sex” [19]. thousand years, / All nations have believed” Fitz-Fulke’s reaction of lookin g [23] in. The tension increases as in the insistently at Juan the next morning, while traditional plays, with a new day interposing playing with her veil, says something else. between the meetings. And when the thread However, it is true that Byron leaves the goes back to the crucial point, occultism is mystery of the phantom hover throughout deflated through the transfer of immaterialism the text. For instance, we cannot be sure into the very corporeal and terrestrial whether the Amundevilles really saw the Duchess. spectre during their honeymoon, as they Explosive eroticism in a shadow claim, or whether there was a mere illusion considered s exless and preoccupied with induced by the tale. As Boyd puts it, spiritual matters is the maximum

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deceitfulness of any moral expectation. Statue will not cure the world of malice and Instead of an enraged Commendatore, a hypocrisy, we cannot but admire the geniality lustful Duchess emerges in front of Juan and dandyism with which he shaped the and the dinner preceding death is replaced figure of the Commendatore: in accordance by an after-dinner amorous dessert. For the with the flaws dominating contemporary mock similarities to be complete, Juan society. A dishonest husband, pretending to “put forth one arm” [24] – an allusion to judge an equally dishonest wife, an enslaver the sinner’s gesture of giving his hand to and murderer, ruining the lives of innocent the Statue – which does not touch the people who happen to fall in his clutches unfriendly, burning fingers of the Stone while demanding to have the chastity of his Guest, but a “glowing bust / Which beat as daughter respected, a Duchess blamed for her if there as a warm heart under” [25]. The immorality, yet received in high-life due to pleasant warmth of the Duchess’ breast her position, are Byron’s commanders. They takes the place of the hot flames borrow some characteristics from the swallowing the libertine. Don Juan ‘dies’ Commendatore only to be made more foolish into Fitz-Fulke’s arms, engulfed by a new then they already are. Lambro alone in this personality killer. It is, however, an triad is treated with some deference and agreeable death surrogate, which turns out absolved of ridicule, probably because of his to be satisfactory for the protagonists and vague resemblance to the writer himself: “He writer alike. Juan recovers from the shock, was a man of a strange temperament, / Of the female commander fulfils her duty of mild demeanour though of savage mood, / not letting Juan mature and Byron, who Moderate in all ill habits and content / with “in Seville / Saw Juan’s last elopement temperance in pleasures and in food” [29]. with the devil” [26], arranges for Don Juan Even so, the acknowledged “fusion of a metaphorical elopement with diabolic tragedy, comedy, and satire in the character Fitz-Fulke into the ‘hell’ of perversion. of Lambro” [30], who cuts throats with the The she-devil executes the divine amiability of a gentleman, dismisses him regulation in her particular style, with from the office of perfect commander with great acting efforts though, which gives dandy cynicism. her the right to appear “suitably ascetic” There is nevertheless a [27] the next morning, invaded by a Commandatore in Don Juan, one who does statuary pallor. not meet the hero, but the author, the real libertine in the poem. It is the dead 3. Conclusions commandant of Ravenna, who is welcome It is evident that with Byron, the into Byron’s house after having been shot. Commendatore cannot keep his prestige Like Don Juan in front of the statue, Byron intact. The three representatives are rather admits: “I gazed upon him” [31]. The caricatural, disgracing the dignity of the reasons for receiving the commandant with concept, if we watch them through the such Don Juanesque promptness are eyes of monk Fray Gabriel Tellez, alias nevertheless “needless to say, not Tirso de Molina, who conceived his Stone Tenorio’s but those of the Good Guest as a superior force, invested with the Samaritan” [32]. Left to perish on the qualities required to defeat evil and restore pavement, the military officer is watched normality. If, on the other hand, we with compassion by the poet: “so I had / appreciate the realism of a poet who is Him borne into the house and up the believed to have “reacted strongly against stairs, / And stripped and looked to” [33]. the supernaturalism of the drama” [28] It is a moment of serious meditation about and who had the courage to imply that a the incalculability of death and the

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ephemerality of life, one of the rare legend, death is laughed at by Don Juan, alias instances when the dandy – libertine Byron in our case. In Tirso’s play, the rake within is not sarcastic about such things: pulls the Statue by the beard; in Molière’s, “is this blood then, formed but to be shed? the libertine ridicules the Statue’s looks in his / Can every element our elements mar? / clothes of Roman emperor; in Mozart’s, the And air – earth – water – fire live – and dead man is called “a venerable fool of we dead? / We, whose minds comprehend fools” [36]. all things?” [34]. If Byron’s hero is not impertinent For the rest, death is invited mockingly enough to make fun of the pseudo- into the action. The comments upon the commanders he confronts, his creator is so cannibal episode with all the pompous for both. The legendary rogue and the lord manoeuvres of the surgeon, the remarks on joke with death, the only opponent able to human mortality which “depends so much on be as cruelly cynical as them. And becaus e gastric juice” [35], the amusement in front of death postpones again and again Juan’s Juan’s fear of ghosts, etc., speak for end, it finds Byron to give the frisson of themselves. In all the classic versions of the the Commendatore’s revenge.

REFERENCES

1. George Gordon Byron, Don Juan, (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 46. 2. Ibidem, 62. 3. Ibidem, 90. 4. Ibidem, 92. 5. Ernest J. Jr. Lovell, “Irony and Image in «Don Juan»”, in Edward E. Bostetter (ed.), Twentieth Century Interpretation of “Don Juan”. A Collection of Critical Essays, (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1969), 22. 6. George Gordon Byron, cit.ed., 91. 7. M oyra Haslett, Byron’s “Don Juan” and the Don Juan Legend, (London: Clarendon Press, 1997), 96. 8. George Gordon Byron, cit.ed., 166. 9. Ibidem, 198. 10. Arthur Kahn, “Byron’s Single Difference with Homer and Virgil – The Redefinition of the Epic in «Don Juan»”, in Arcadia 5, 2 (1970), 153. 11. George Gordon Byron, cit.ed., 198. 12. Ibidem, 198. 13. Ibidem, 199. 14. Ibidem, 167. 15. Ibidem, 133. 16. Ibidem, 167. 17. Leonard Deen, “Liberty and Licence in Byron’s «Don Juan»”, in Texas Studies in Literature and Language, (1966), 355. 18. Jean Rousset, Mitul lui Don Juan, (Bucharest: Univers Publishing House, 1999), 21. 19. Bernard Beatty, Byron’s Don Juan, (London: Crom Helm, 1985), 130. 20. Elizabeth French Boyd, Byron’s “Don Juan”: A Critical Study, (New York: The Humanities Press, 1958), 155. 21. George Gordon Byron, cit.ed., 531. 22. Ibidem, 527. 23. Ibidem, 523.

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24. Ibidem, 553. 25. Ibidem, 554. 26. Ibidem, 96. 27. Paul Ellledge, “Parting Shots: Byron Ending «Don Juan»” 1, in Studies in 4, 27 (1988), 281. 28. Elizabeth French Boyd, cit.ed., 37. 29. George Gordon Byron, cit.ed., 170. 30. Ernest J. Jr. Lovell, cit.ed., 24. 31. George Gordon Byron, cit.ed., 227. 32. Bernard Beatty, cit.ed., 14. 33. George Gordon Byron, cit.ed., 227. 34. Ibidem, 228. 35. Ibidem, 227. 36. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, , (New York: Frederick Rullman, 1858), 14.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beatty, Bernard. Byron’s Don Juan. London: Crom Helm, 1985. Boyd, Elizabeth, French. Byron’s “Don Juan”: A Critical Study. New York: The Humanities Press, 1958. Byron, George, Gordon. Don Juan. London: Penguin Books, 2004. Deen, Leonard. “Liberty and Licence in Byron’s «Don Juan»”. In Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 1966. Ellledge, Paul. “Parting Shots: Byron Ending «Don Juan»” 1. Studies in Romanticism 4, 27 (1988). Haslett, Moyra. Byron’s “Don Juan” and the Don Juan Legend. London: Clarendon Press, 1997. Kahn, Arthur. Byron’s Single Difference with Homer and Virgil – The Redefinition of the Epic in “Don Juan”. Arcadia 5, 2 (1970). Lovell, Ernest, J., Jr. “Irony and Image in «Don Juan»”. Edward E. Bostetter (ed.), Twentieth Century Interpretation of “Don Juan”. A Collection of Critical Essays. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1969. M olière. Don Juan and the dramatic works of Molière 3. Philadelphia: George Barrie, 1955. De M olina, Tirso. Seducătorul din Sevilla şi musafirul de piatră. Bucharest: Univers Publishing House, 1973. Mozart, Wolfgang, Amadeus and Lorenzo Da Ponte. Don Giovanni. New York: Frederick Rullman, 1858. Rousset, Jean. Mitul lui Don Juan. Bucharest: Univers Publishing House, 1999.

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