ABSTRACT
Byron’s Don Juan was written between 1818 and 1823 and published in stages between 1819 and 1824. Byron’s additional debts have been diligently investigated and it has been shown that he drew a great deal on travelogues, histories and other sources, above all to provide the adventurous, martial and exotic material for cantos 2–9. Byron constantly draws the reader into events, chatting with him, appealing to him and teasing him. Don Juan’s role seems to be chiefly that of an outsider against whom the absurdity, artificiality, corruption and hypocrisy of English high society can be measured. Juan is brought up in an atmosphere of sexual prudery by his widowed mother. His sexual initiation comes when he is aged sixteen. After a voyage, Juan is found shipwrecked on an island, where he enjoys an idyllic love affair with Haidee, the daughter of a pirate and slave-trader.
