Academic literature on the topic '1788-1824 Don Juan'

An oxymoron is a self-contradicting or incongruous word or group of words as in Lord Byron’s (1788–1824) line from his satirical epic poem Don Juan; “melancholy merriment”, An oxymoron is a rhetorical and epigrammatic device for effect, often revealing paradox. The effect I aim for here is the actualization of affect; affect made relevant and useful for education as a public good. Oxymoroning as an immediate edging of knowledge into experience, hence a way to access a proto subjective level of the affective power of X. The prefix proto indicating the first, original or earliest. I ask how we can become materially identifiable subjects for one another and what would it take to move from a mechanistic approach to education to a more machinic one. It is a view of change that does not steal my powers or affective force away. Furthermore, are the abstractions one attempts to move from imitation to imagination abstract enough? I aim for expansions in our educational rationales for social and natural sustainability. It implies an educational philosophy of multiplicity ready to support and join a creative pluralism of organization and pedagogies and simultaneously counteract predetermined and controlling pluralism of organization and pedagogies. The overarching contribution of this poem is political, pragmatic and ethical and concerns the constitution of subjectivity for education in inter- and intra-generational perspectives through taking part in polysemantic ambiguity, envisioning a modest view to the child as a knowledgeable and connectable collective. Ultimately, a view of the child is our primary measurement indicator for educational quality. The competence most important to develop for educators is impression tenderness in order to meet the expressions of the child.

This dissertation on Byron's Don Juan begins with a history and analysis of the stanza form. Since ottava rima is a two-fold structure, comprising an alternately rhyming sestet followed by an independent couplet, it encourages the expression of dialectical ideas. Byron's prosodic virtuosity uses this potential to create a multivalent tissue of tones which is essentially—and almost infinitely—ironic. A view of prosody is developed here which is unique in its perception of the poem's existence in terms of a reading that unfolds in "real time." For various reasons, "reader-response" critics have not yet taken much cognizance of prosody. Don Juan is a good testing-ground for their approach because its narrator constantly addresses his reader, insisting on a present time which actively accumulates a past and projects a future, as a reader's consciousness moves sequentially forward through the text. The present time of the verse rhythms is the present time of the discourse, which is often most self-reflexive in the famous "digressions." Some of these begin with an epic simile whose vehicle grows out of proportion to its tenor; others are triggered by an interruption of the story, as the narrator—like a Renaissance improvisor in ottava rima— suddenly addresses his audience directly. Still other digressions are not metaleptic leaps from a fictional to a "real" world, or from one fictional world to another, however; they are the result of the narrator's tendency to linger too long in one world, elaborating descriptions until his story is forgotten. Despite the poem's many-voiced, digressive insouciance, an investigation of its moral and metaphysical components reveals that its irony has limits. Maugre those critics who would claim Don Juan as the paradigmatic work of unlimited, infinitely regressive Romantic irony, the issue of political liberty is not to be joked about, unlike the problem of erotic love. At this stable point in an otherwise absurd universe, Byron reveals a non-ironic self under the ironic mask. More effectively than traditional autobiography, because it is enacted rather than reported, this poem recreates its author dramatically, in terms of a shifting triangular relationship between narrator, protagonist and reader. The temporal locus of this relationship is a fictional present tense grounded in the "real" present time of a reading of the poem.
Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate

This thesis seeks to explain how Lord George Gordon Byron achieves catharsis through the writing of his truth in Don Juan. In the poem the narrator expresses Byron's innermost emotion while at the same time the protagonist, Juan, relates to readers on a more conscious level. The ability that Byron has to work through the narrator in Don Juan provides him with an avenue of expression for his suppressed and frustrated emotions that are largely subconscious and inexpressible. Byron's poetry, and especially Don Juan, is poetry in which the scope of human experience reaches into every aspect of life as he shares with readers his innermost emotion, emotion that is significantly more intense than that of most 19th century writers. Studying Byron may be considered a study of life itself and an opportunity for literary and historical experience on a uniquely intimate level. Byron left England with his friend Hobhouse to travel through Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Italy in 1809. At this time he wrote Childe Harold, which brought him great fame after his return. The second and final time Byron left England was in 1816. At this time the intense emotional experience and social criticism contained in his poetry brought on severe public criticism which caused him to leave in self-exile. During Byron's second exile he traveled throughout Italy, Turkey and Greece. He ultimately died in Missolonghi, Greece, in 1824 while helping the Greek people fight in a civil war with the Turks. Byron felt that it was important to remain in Greece and help the people, even though his health was failing, ultimately resulting in his death. Byron sought a hero through the writing of Don Juan, and the catharsis he achieved as a result of writing his truth uncovered the hero he was seeking.
Graduation date: 1999

Mak, Ka Yu.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 122-125).
Abstracts in English and Chinese.
"Introduction: Don Juan: ""the most readable poem of its length""" --- p.1
Chapter Chapter One: --- Parodying Authorial Presence in Don Juan and Orlando --- p.12
Don Juan and Orlando as Literary Jokes --- p.13
Don Juan and Orlando as Cross-Genre Literature --- p.15
Common Literary Predecessors --- p.18
The Byronic Biographer --- p.22
"Fictional Life, Real Life" --- p.28
Literary Tyrant and Liberal Equivocator --- p.33
Their Ambiguous Human Portraits --- p.42
The Parodies' Resolution --- p.51
Chapter Chapter Two: --- The Modern Artist's Listless Monologue in Don Juan and The Waves --- p.57
Don Juan as a Modern Man's Monologue --- p.58
The Waves as Don Juan's Modem Counterpart --- p.63
"The Wave's Narrative Frame and ""Dramatic Soliloquies""" --- p.66
The Complication of the Narrative Perspective(s) --- p.70
Byron's Young Man --- p.74
Yet Byron never made tea as you do --- p.77
The Making of Modem Artists --- p.82
The Infant and the World --- p.86
"The Wo/Man ""Outside the Thinker""" --- p.96
The Death of Heroes --- p.103
Social Alienation --- p.108
Ennui and Boredom --- p.111
Yet Life Goes On --- p.115
Conclusion --- p.118
Works Cited --- p.122

Firstly in digression Byron presents a national reality which gradually displaces his cherished cosmopolitan ideals. Among many other pressing problems of his day, political renegades, the paradox of scientific innovations, the rise of intellectual ladies and the commoditization of marriage and family constitute the tangible part of Byron's domestic recalling. With retrospective commentaries Byron fulfills the act of imagining native land; and in this regard nationalism is the spiritual support of the expatriate existence.
I propose to comprehend the perceptive gap by focusing on Don Juan which best contextualizes Byron in the flow of historicity with the dimension of nationalism. I intend to delve into three structural units of Don Juan---digression, narrative, a lyric song---to argue that Byronic contradictions manifest nationalism in its multiple contingencies.
In conclusion Don Juan reveals that Byron's participation in the modern historicity of nationalism involves three dimensions---residual cosmopolitan ideals, English national consciousness and the independence of the oppressed nations. Don Juan embodies a historical magnetic field where Byron's existence actualizes the potential conflict of the modernity.
Secondly by reading Don Juan as the quest romance of the individual initiation, I bring the narrative into scrutiny and argue that the hero's transformation involves an implicit evolution of the national identification. In terms of subjective consciousness, nationalism embodies the mature vision of masculine selfhood. Don Juan's encounter with both female and male characters, through his repeated border-crossing, illuminates a metaphorical process from rejection to embrace of native roots, from negation to affirmation of national bonds Juan's rite of passage---sexual initiation, surviving shipwreck, the trial of the exotic love and battlefield and diplomacy---transmits a national subjectivity which corresponds to the Byronic existence of mobility.
The dissertation explores the discrepancy between critical reception towards Byron as a Romantic poet in contemporary Romantic scholarship and in Chinese historical evaluation (with certain reference to the European Continent). Byronic contradictions pose a problem to Romantic scholars who are engaged to interpret the interplay between Byron the man and Byron the poet. They share the view that Byron succeeds in manipulating his own personal image to promote his poetical visibility and tend to doubt if his poems could stand alone without the reference to his letters and journals. In China, as in many other countries of European Continent and Asia, Byron is often viewed in a more positive way as the very name has become a byword for liberal nationalism and the rebellion against tyranny
Thirdly 'Isles of Greece' adds an alternative yet prospective dimension to perceive the tension between national anxiety and modernity. In English context its meanings vary as the contextual focus shifts from poetical to socio-biographical and to existential level. The theme of the national independence is complicated by its negative elements such as the identity of the songster. In the Chinese context, 'the Isles of Greece' initiates and embodies a myth-making process as it gives vent to the anxiety of modernity faced by Chinese people in the opening of the twentieth century. The individual shaping of the 'Isles' by three Chinese intellectual pioneers symbolizes the simultaneous awakening of Chinese national consciousness and individual consciousness. The extended reading of Byron by Lu Xun, together with his reworking, voices the existential dilemma of modern enlighteners. His invocation of 'Mara poets' is prophetic of the modern intellectuals who possess both vision and willpower to eradicate ignorance and public apathy.
Gu, Yao.
Adviser: Ching Yuet May.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-01, Section: A, page: .
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 167-173).
Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Abstract also in Chinese.