‘Don’t trifle with her affections, you Don Juan!’ says a friend to Jos Sedley, in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, knowing that the fat and ridiculous Jos will be mightily pleased with the description. The original Don Juan was Juan...

When the first two cantos were published anonymously in 1819, the poem was criticised for its 'immoral content', though it was also immensely...

BOOK OF A LIFETIME When Byron died, a 14-year-old Tennyson carved his name into a rock at Somersby. By the time he had made his own name, Byron's reputation had declined; Wordsworth was ascendant. John Mortimer once wrote about the sadness he felt...

Literary critics cast Lord Byron as poet who did not believe in Christianity. He often wrote about hopelessness, despair, skepticism, and his sad journeys through Europe. However, some critics point to the changes that he went through, such as the differences apparent in his...

Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, from his own screenplay, received the Grand Prix (second prize after the Gold Palm) at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. This meant that it had been widely reviewed before I had a chance to see it at a special screening sponsored...

Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, from his own screenplay, received the Grand Prix (second prize after the Gold Palm) at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. This meant that it had been widely reviewed before I had a chance to see it at a special screening sponsored...

In the following essay, Lessenich explores Byron's characterization of love and war as vain and perilous pursuits, designed to tempt death.

In the following essay, Graham illustrates the ways in which Byron set Don Juan against the mores of Regency England and argues that the poem was written both for and from the viewpoint of the “cultivated man.”

In the following essay, originally published in 1945, Boyd examines several figures and events that may have inspired various characters and scenes in Don Juan.