comment-I want a hero-1 I want a hero

In the words of kduglin in her snip I want a hero, she says, “Don Juan is fiercely entertaining and comical”, she finds the poem “clearly a satirical representation of a classical epic poem”. Similarly, vis-à-vis Wu, Duglin also finds Byron’s lifestyle and trouble-making personality evident throughout his story. Adding to this, I would just like to highlight a few of the narrative interruptions, that Byron so wittingly chooses to include.

One in particular that caught my attention came at the end of Canto I, as Juan escapes the rather precarious situation he had fallen into between Don Alfonso and Donna Julia. Byron takes this opportunity to justify his prose- or rather alienate the prose from its writer. In one instance he writes: (verse 201, line 1604)

“The vade-mecum of the true sublime
Which makes so many poets, and some fools;
Prose poets like blank verse, I’m fond of rhyme-
Good workmen never quarrel with their tools;
I’ve got new mythological machinery
And very handsome supernatural scenery.”

Either extremely sarcastic or pompous, Byron negates those poets who write in blank verse as “fools” while at the same time, calling his new creation “new mythological machinery” with “very handsome supernatural scenery”. If anything, Byron seems to be “underwriting” his own poem, declaring it more important than he believes it truly to be worth. His lines are laden with a sarcasm that doesn’t take itself too seriously; making grand claims like this one seem rather obsolete.

Another instance of Byron’s sarcastic/ironic tone occurs in stanzas 205 through the end of the Canto. Similar to verse 201, Byron “sorts” through past poets, negating some while praising others. He claims that:

“Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;
Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey,
Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,
The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy;”

Is Byron here pushing his own poetic tastes, or simply adding to the poem’s spoof-like qualities by sorting great poets through unsubstantiated claims? His biting sarcasm, usually focused on the act of loving or being loved, now finds a new victim in poetry itself. In a final more pertinent passage in stanza 218, Byron writes,

“What is the end of fame? ‘Tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper;….
Whose summit, like all hills’, is lost in vapour;” (line 1740)

Here more than ever, his “satirical representation of an epic poem” may be the most obvious. The audience now feels a little more acquainted with Byron’s “inside joke” and the playful humor he has been withholding, though he does not take credit for: “,reader, take them not for mine!” (stanza 222, line 1776, end of Canto 1).