Influences’ conclusion
In a sense, Don Juan is indebted to only one great
influence: it grew out of traumatic events in Byron’s own
life. It encompasses the Don Juan tradition, because this
legend embodied essential elements of Byron’s own life and
character, as perceived by the society in which Byron lived.
But in Byron’s hands, the Don Juan story became thoroughly
fused with the story of Tom Jones. This great humanistic
novel also contained vital elements of Byron’s character
and of his society, as perceived by Byron hiraself.
In addition to its combination of plot elements from
life and literature, Don Juan also represented a new mode in
English literature. It combined the English colloquial
tradition of Fielding and other great writers with the
Italian jocose epic tradition of Berni and Pulci. Dominating
all of these diverse elements was Byron’s own personality,
huraorous and cynical, yet sentiraental at the same time,
and, above all, realistic.
Finally, we raust recognize that Don Juan was also a
product of its own tiraes, despite the critical attacks which
it provoked among Byron’s contemporaries, and despite our
own recognition of it as a great work of art. It owed its
form to Byron’s chance encounter with an imitation of Bemi
by J. H. Frere. Its very title and subject were made possible
only by the revival of interest in the Don Juan legend
during 1817 and 1818. Even when Byron had decided upon the
genre and the subject matter, his ultimate comraitraent to the
work may have been inspired by Shelley’s visiting him at an
appropriate raoraent, renewing his zest for poetry and bolstering
his confidence in his own poetic powers.
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