Asimov's annotated "Don Juan"
by Lord Byron, Isaac Asimov (Editor)
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Byron's exuberant masterpiece tells of the adventures of Don Juan, beginning with his illicit love affair at the age of sixteen in his native Spain and his subsequent exile to Italy. Following a dramatic shipwreck, his exploits take him to Greece, where he is sold as a slave, and to Russia, where he becomes a favourite of the Empress Catherine who sends him on to England. Written entirely in ottava rima stanza form, Byron's Don Juan blends high drama with earthy humour, outrageous satire of show more his contemporaries (in particular Wordsworth and Southey) and sharp mockery of Western societies, with England coming under particular attack. show lessTags
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The trouble with appealing to adolescent tastes is that adolescents outgrow them. The world turns out to be less gloomy and alienating than they thought, or it turns out to be gloomy and alienating in a less exciting way. Wordsworth's steady, sober self-involvement seems more and more significant. And then, you discover Don Juan. One of the great strange things about it is that it isn't at all show more about sexual guilt. The Don drifts disastrously from encounter to encounter and loves and grieves through each of them, sincerely and sweetly. He suffers expulsion, shipwreck, enslavement, war, celebrity – without any effect on his ability to love or grieve again. The problem for the Byronic hero is that he can't get over anything; the problem for Don Juan is that he can. show less
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English poet and dramatist George Gordon, Lord Byron was born January 22, 1788, in London. The boy was sent to school in Aberdeen, Scotland, until the age of ten, then to Harrow, and eventually to Cambridge, where he remained form 1805 to 1808. A congenital lameness rankled in the spirit of a high-spirited Byron. As a result, he tried to excel in show more every thing he did. It was during his Cambridge days that Byron's first poems were published, the Hours of Idleness (1807). The poems were criticized unfavorably. Soon after Byron took the grand tour of the Continent and returned to tell of it in the first two cantos of Childe Harold (1812). Instantly entertained by the descriptions of Spain, Portugal, Albania, and Greece in the first publication, and later travels in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, the public savored Byron's passionate, saucy, and brilliant writing. Byron published the last of Childe Harold, Canto IV, in 1818. The work created and established Byron's immense popularity, his reputation as a poet and his public persona as a brilliant but moody romantic hero, of which he could never rid himself. Some of Byron's lasting works include The Corsair, Lara, Hebrew Melodies, She Walks In Beauty, and the drama Manfred. In 1819 he published the first canto of Don Juan, destined to become his greatest work. Similar to Childe Harold, this epic recounts the exotic and titillating adventures of a young Byronica hero, giving voice to Byron's social and moral criticisms of the age. Criticized as immoral, Byron defended Don Juan fiercely because it was true-the virtues the reader doesn't see in Don Juan are not there precisely because they are so rarely exhibited in life. Nevertheless, the poem is humorous, rollicking, thoughtful, and entertaining, an enduring masterpiece of English literature. Byron died of fever in Greece in 1824, attempting to finance and lead the Byron Brigade of Greek freedom fighters against the Turks. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Isaac Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russia, on January 2, 1920. His family emigrated to the United States in 1923 and settled in Brooklyn, New York, where they owned and operated a candy store. Asimov became a naturalized U.S. citizen at the age of eight. As a youngster he discovered his talent for writing, producing his first original fiction at show more the age of eleven. He went on to become one of the world's most prolific writers, publishing nearly 500 books in his lifetime. Asimov was not only a writer; he also was a biochemist and an educator. He studied chemistry at Columbia University, earning a B.S., M.A. and Ph.D. In 1951, Asimov accepted a position as an instructor of biochemistry at Boston University's School of Medicine even though he had no practical experience in the field. His exceptional intelligence enabled him to master new systems rapidly, and he soon became a successful and distinguished professor at Columbia and even co-authored a biochemistry textbook within a few years. Asimov won numerous awards and honors for his books and stories, and he is considered to be a leading writer of the Golden Age of science fiction. While he did not invent science fiction, he helped to legitimize it by adding the narrative structure that had been missing from the traditional science fiction books of the period. He also introduced several innovative concepts, including the thematic concern for technological progress and its impact on humanity. Asimov is probably best known for his Foundation series, which includes Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation. In 1966, this trilogy won the Hugo award for best all-time science fiction series. In 1983, Asimov wrote an additional Foundation novel, Foundation's Edge, which won the Hugo for best novel of that year. Asimov also wrote a series of robot books that included I, Robot, and eventually he tied the two series together. He won three additional Hugos, including one awarded posthumously for the best non-fiction book of 1995, I. Asimov. "Nightfall" was chosen the best science fiction story of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America. In 1979, Asimov wrote his autobiography, In Memory Yet Green. He continued writing until just a few years before his death from heart and kidney failure on April 6, 1992. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Contains
Is an expanded version of
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1972
- Dedication
- Oh, curse the crass and foolish emulation
That makes me dream of wit that’s like to Byron’s, And draws me on to find some dedication To force a smile, though lips were dour as Chiron’s When, truth to tell, I lack... (show all) the inspiration
To place, in my brain’s fire, the clever irons.
So let me simply find on this sad planet One saving note of grace and say:
To Janet. - First words
- George Gordon Byron was born on January 22, 1788, and if there was a spoon in his mouth, it did not seem to be silver.
- Quotations
- There seems to be a very ancient legend that swans sing very beautifully, but only once—just before they die. It is this legend that gives us the expression “swan song" for any artistic production that is the last work of... (show all) a notable creator. (As it happens, Don }uan is Byron’s swan song.) Unfortunately, the legend is entirely without foundation; swans do not sing, either before death or at any other time; yet the tale remains an ineradicable literary allusion.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Might he not, then, in the end, have married Leila, the little girl he had saved at Izmail, and settled down to the blameless life of husband, father, and country squire?
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