Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1998 "To Play With Fixities and Definites": Byron's Fanciful Real World Games in "Don Juan". Nancy Clark Victory Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Victory, Nancy Clark, ""To Play With Fixities and Definites": Byron's Fanciful Real World Games in "Don Juan"." (1998). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 6766. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/6766 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. 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"TO PLAY WITH FIXITIES AND DEFINITES" BYRON'S FANCIFUL REAL WORLD GAMES IN DON JUAN A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Nancy Clark Victory B.A., Baylor University, 1972 M.A., Stephen F. Austin State University, 1977 August 1998 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 9902668 Copyright 199 8 by Victory, Nancy Clark AH rights reserved. UMI Microform 9902668 Copyright 1998, by UMI Company. AH rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Copyright 1998 Nancy Clark Victory All rights reserved 1 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ............................................. iv CHAPTER ONE VEERING WINDS AND SHIFTING SAILS ............. 1 TWO FROM STORY TO GLORY: PLAYING WITH TRADITION. 36 THREE THE GAMES OF LOVE AND POETRY ................. 84 FOUR A PARADISE OF PLEASURE AND ENNUI: THE GAMES OF MARRIAGE AND ADULTERY ................... 125 FIVE CONCLUSION ................................... 236 REFERENCES ........................................... 247 VITA ................................................. 253 iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT In his "epic" retelling of the Don Juan tale, Byron playfully transforms his conventional sources into a poem which explores, among other subjects, Byron's poetics. Of the many love relationships in Don Juan, Juan and Haidee's represents not only ideal love, but also a startlingly Romantic expression of poetic activity. The lovers' transformation of the elements of their heretofore hostile world into a natural playworld is accomplished by a fourth variety of Romantic imagination, a Byronic Fancy which surpasses the mechanical nature of Coleridge's "Fancy." Operating in a manner strikingly similar to Coleridge's "secondary Imagination," Byron's poetic faculty also "dissolves, diffuses, dissipates... to re-create," stopping short, though, of the familiar unifying vision of the Romantics. In the three romantic episodes which serve as foils to the love of Juan and Haidee, the traditions which inform the lovers' concepts of love are disclosed to be only imitations of honest emotion. Julia's idea of romantic love follows the overworked Petrarchan model; Gulbeyaz is trapped in a world where love is just another strategy of control and survival; the English noblewomen have learned from the sentimental literature of their day to value an unauthentic, intellectual "feeling" above all else. In their attempts to find personal value through the love games they devise, Juan's amours cannot get beyond the most basic level of creative play--that of the Coleridgean iv with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission Fancy. They relate mechanically to their surroundings, choosing and manipulating the components of their lives until they gain a sense of power--unlike Juan's expansive, transformative mode of play. For the women who have joined in love games, however flawed, with Juan, interacting with the power of the Byronic Fancy expands their world. The reader of Don Juan--interacting with a playfully shifting text, narrator, and poet--experiences a far greater enrichment. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER ONE VEERING WINDS AND SHIFTING SAILS You are too earnest and eager about a work never intended to be serious;--do you suppose that I could have any intention but to giggle and make giggle?--playful satire with as little poetry as could be helped-- (LJ 6.208) In Byron's earliest announcement to his friend Tom Moore of the imminent arrival in London of his new poem, a broadly "facetious" "epic" called Don Juan, the author already betrays a slight uneasiness. He casually suggests that it may be "too free for these very modest days" (L&J 6.67). Whatever reaction Byron expected from his reading public, however, he was probably unprepared for the immediate response from his London friends.- the poem was unpublishable. Recognizing that the objectionable parts of Don Juan were integral to its humor and poetic value and could not be cut without destroying the poem, John Cam Hobhouse, spokesman for the group, concluded by advising his friend to circulate the poem privately only to those readers who could appreciate its sly wit and sophisticated commentary on British culture and politics. Byron's pride was understandably hurt, and his first reaction was to acquiesce to his friends' judgment concerning general publication and ask for a mere fifty copies for his personal distribution. Within a month, however, he had regained his resolve and promised his publisher, John Murray, "I will battle my way against them all, like a Porcupine" (L&J 6.105). 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For several days preceding the publication of Cantos I and II of Don Juan, an enigmatic announcement appeared in the English newspapers: "In a few days--Don Juan.” When the cantos were published on July 15, 1819, they were accompanied by neither the author's nor the publisher's name. The storm of controversy which Byron's circle had anticipated did not break immediately,- the first reviews, while registering some moral protests, were, on the whole, quite complimentary with respect to the poem's artistic value. It was in August that the critical reception shifted and the most damning reviews began to appear. The most vicious were generally ad hominem attacks. While faintly praising the poem's artistic value, journals such as Blackwood's Magazine focused brutal criticism on the supposed reflection of Byron's depraved personal life in his tale of the legendary lover, Don Juan. In their enthusiastic condemnation of its author, many reviewers only briefly mentioned the poetry itself. When the literary figures of the day were not berating Byron for his treatment of Lady Byron for instance, or the dissipation to be found in his Venetian household, they frequently condemned in