{"title":"In Pursuit of the Stony Guest: Byron’s Don Juan and the Modern Concept of Revenge","authors":"N. Lennartz","doi":"10.3366/rom.2022.0537","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This essay argues that Byron is not only on the look-out for a suitable hero for his narrative poem, but also for an impersonation of the avenger at the end of the story. With Don Juan transferred into the modern age, the ontological category of hell has become as outdated as the threat of a stony guest appearing at a banquet and dragging the over-reacher down into hell. While the idea of eating and feasting pervades the entire poem, the avenger is camouflaged behind different masks and disguises: apparently a convivial Spanish gentleman and banqueter, the narrator dexterously transforms himself into a roguish Yorick, or Mephistopheles exposing their victims to their painful pranks; in the ‘England’ Cantos, he eventually shows Don Juan on the brink of falling into the misogynist inferno of a gynocratic marriage, with Juan curiously petrified and the (female) avenger dressed up as a Gothic friar.","PeriodicalId":42939,"journal":{"name":"Romanticism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Romanticism","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3366/rom.2022.0537","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This essay argues that Byron is not only on the look-out for a suitable hero for his narrative poem, but also for an impersonation of the avenger at the end of the story. With Don Juan transferred into the modern age, the ontological category of hell has become as outdated as the threat of a stony guest appearing at a banquet and dragging the over-reacher down into hell. While the idea of eating and feasting pervades the entire poem, the avenger is camouflaged behind different masks and disguises: apparently a convivial Spanish gentleman and banqueter, the narrator dexterously transforms himself into a roguish Yorick, or Mephistopheles exposing their victims to their painful pranks; in the ‘England’ Cantos, he eventually shows Don Juan on the brink of falling into the misogynist inferno of a gynocratic marriage, with Juan curiously petrified and the (female) avenger dressed up as a Gothic friar.
期刊介绍:
The most distinguished scholarly journal of its kind edited and published in Britain, Romanticism offers a forum for the flourishing diversity of Romantic studies today. Focusing on the period 1750-1850, it publishes critical, historical, textual and bibliographical essays prepared to the highest scholarly standards, reflecting the full range of current methodological and theoretical debate. With an extensive reviews section, Romanticism constitutes a vital international arena for scholarly debate in this liveliest field of literary studies.