By Gene Ogorodov
Don Juan (pronounced /ˈdʒuːən/ JU-en to rhyme with "true one") along with Manfred, and Childe Harlod's Pilgrimage compose the triumvirate of Lord Byron's greatest masterpieces. If anyone is under the misimpression that poetry is sissified one needs look no further than the Satanic School--an epitaph given to Byron, Shelley, and their cohorts by Poet Laureate Robert Southey. Lord Byron's poetry is wild and vivid, stylistically perfect, and esoteric in a way that only Classical scholar could be. His Byronic Heroes are notorious (especially in High School English classes), but they do live up to all expectations on the written page, and he personally lived a life to match anyone of them. Rigorous study of Byron isn't for the faint of heart nor are the 16,000 lines of Don Juan. The PLI edition of Don Juan can be found for Nook at Barnes and Noble.(On a side note, the spurious claims that students tend to make about Don Juan is gay are completely erroneous--if sleeping with hundreds of women isn't proof of at least bisexuality, then there is no such thing as proof a posteriori.)
E.V. Ogorodov