George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (22

January 1788 19 April 1824), commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Among Byron's best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and the short lyric "She Walks in Beauty." He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential. He travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero.[1] He died at age 36 from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi in Greece. Byron was celebrated in life for aristocratic excesses, including huge debts, numerous love affairs, rumours of a scandalous incestuous liaison with his half-sister, and selfimposed exile.[2] It has been speculated that he suffered from bipolar I disorder.[ Don Juan is a satiric poem[1] by Lord Byron, based on the legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses, portraying Juan not as a womanizer but as someone easily seduced by women. It is a variation on the epic form. Byron himself called it an "Epic Satire" (Don Juan, c. xiv, st. 99). Modern critics generally consider it Byron's masterpiece, with a total of more than 16,000 lines of verse. Byron completed 16 cantos, leaving an unfinished 17th canto before his death in 1824. Byron claimed he had no ideas in his mind as to what would happen in subsequent cantos as he wrote his work. When the first two cantos were published anonymously in 1819, the poem was criticized for its 'immoral content', though it was also immensely popular.

History
Byron was a rapid as well as a voluminous writer. Nevertheless, the composition of his great poem, Don Juan, was coextensive with a major part of his poetical life. He began the first canto of Don Juan in the autumn of 1818, and he was still at work on a seventeenth canto in the spring of 1823. The poem was issued in parts, with intervals of unequal duration. Interruptions in the composition and publication of Don Juan were due to the disapproval and discouragement of friends as well as the publisher's hesitation and procrastination. Canto I. was written in September 1818; Canto II. in DecemberJanuary, 1818-1819. Both were published on 15 July 1819. Cantos III. and IV. were written in the winter of 1819-1820; Canto V., after an interval of nine months, in OctoberNovember 1820, but the publication of Cantos III., IV., V. was delayed till 8 August 1821. In June 1822, Byron began to work at a sixth, and by the end of March, 1823, he had completed a sixteenth canto. But the publication of these later cantos, which had been declined by John Murray, and was finally entrusted to John Hunt, was spread over a period of several months. Cantos VI., VII., VIII., with a Preface, were published on 15 July; Cantos IX., X., XI on 29 August; Cantos XII., XIII., XIV., on 17 December 1823; Cantos XV., XVI. on 26 March 1824. It has been said that the character of Donna Inez (Don Juan's mother) was a thinly veiled portrait of Byron's own wife, Annabella Milbanke (daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke).

Synopsis
Canto I
Don Juan lives in Seville with his father Jos and his mother Donna Inez. Donna Julia, 23 years old and married to Don Alfonso, 50, begins to desire Don Juan when he is 16 years old. Despite her attempt to resist, Julia begins an affair with Juan. Julia falls in love with Juan. Don Alfonso, suspecting that his wife may be having an affair, bursts into their bedroom followed by a "posse concomitant" but they do not find anything suspicious upon first searching the room, for Juan was hiding in the bed. However, when Alfonso returns on his own, he comes across Juan's shoes and a fight ensues. Juan escapes, however. In order to avoid the rumors and bad reputation her son has brought upon himself, Inez sends him away to travel, in the hopes that he develops better morals, while Julia is sent to a nunnery.

Canto II
Canto II describes how Juan goes on a voyage from Cadiz with servants and his tutor Pedrillo. Juan is still in love with Julia, and after a period of seasickness, a storm sinks the ship. The crew climb into a long boat, but soon run out of food. The crew decide to draw lots in order to choose who will be eaten. Juan's tutor Pedrillo is chosen after Juan's dog has also been eaten. However, those that eat Pedrillo go mad and die. Juan is the sole survivor of the journey; he eventually makes it onto land at Cyclades in the Aegean. Haide and her maid Zoe discover Juan and care for him in a cave by the beach. Haide and Juan fall in love despite the fact that neither can understand each other's language. Haide's father Lambro is a "fisherman" and pirate who makes money from capturing slaves.

Canto III
Canto III is essentially a long digression from the main story in which Byron, in the style of an epic catalogue, describes Haide and Don Juan's celebrations. The islanders believe Haide's father, Lambro, has died, but he returns and witnesses these revels. Towards the end of the canto, Byron insults his contemporaries William Wordsworth, Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It is in this latter section that we find "The Isles of Greece" a section numbered differently to the rest of the canto with a different verse which explores Byron's views on Greece's status as a "slave" to the Ottoman Empire.

Canto IV
Haide and Juan wake to discover that Haide's father, Lambro, has returned. Lambro confronts Juan and attacks him with the aid of his pirate friends. Haide despairs at losing her lover and eventually dies of a broken heart with her unborn child still in her womb. Juan is sent away on a ship and ends up at a slave market in Constantinople.

Canto V
Juan is in the slave market. He converses with an Englishman, telling of his lost love, whereas the more experienced John says he had to run away from his third wife. A black eunuch from the seraglio, Baba, buys Juan and John, and takes the infidels to the palace. He takes them to an inner chamber, where he insists that Don Juan dress as a woman and threatens him with castration if he resists. Finally, Juan is brought into an imperial hall to meet the sultana, Gulbeyaz, a 26-year-old beauty who is the sultan's fourth, last and favourite wife. Full of stubborn pride, he refuses to kiss her foot and finally compromises by kissing her hand. She had spotted Juan at the market and had asked Baba to secretly purchase him for her, despite the risk of discovery by the sultan. She wants Juan to "love" her, and throws herself on his breast. But he still has thoughts of Haide and spurns her advances, saying "The prisoned eagle will not pair, nor I/Serve a sultana's sensual phantasy." She is taken aback, enraged, and thinks of having him beheaded, but breaks out in tears instead. Before they can progress further in their relationship, Baba rushes in to announce that the Sultan is coming: "The sun himself has sent me like a ray/To hint that he is coming up this way." The sultan arrives, preceded by a parade of damsels, eunuchs, etc.. Looking around, he takes note of the attractive Christian woman (Juan), expressing regret that a mere Christian should be so pretty (Juan is a giaour, or nonMuslim). Byron comments on the necessity to secure the chastity of the women in these unhappy climes that "wedlock and a padlock mean the same."

Canto VI
The sultan retires with Gulbeyaz. Juan, still dressed as a woman, is taken to the overcrowded seraglio. He is asked to share a couch with the young and lovely 17-yearold Dud. When asked what his name is, Don Juan calls himself Juanna. She is a "kind of sleepy Venus ... very fit to murder sleep... Her talents were of the more silent class... pensive..." She gives Juanna a chaste kiss and undresses. The chamber of odalisques is asleep at 3 AM. Dud suddenly screams, and awakens agitated, while Juanna still lies asleep and snoring. The women ask the cause of her scream, and she relates a suggestive dream of being in a wood like Dante, of dislodging a reluctant golden apple clinging tenaciously to its bough (which at last willingly falls), of almost biting into the forbidden fruit when a bee flies out from it and stings her to the heart. The matron of the seraglio decides to place Juanna with another odalisque, but Dud begs to keep her in her own bed, hiding her face in Juanna's breast. The poet is at a loss to explain why she screamed. In the morning, the sultana asks Baba to tell her how Don Juan passed the night. He tells of "her" stay in the seraglio, but carefully omits details about Dud and her dream. But the sultana is suspicious nevertheless, becomes enraged, and instructs Baba to have Dud and Juan killed in the usual manner (drowning). Baba pleads with her that killing Juan will not cure what ails her. The sultana summons Dud and Juan. Just before the canto ends, the narrator explains that the "Muse will take a little touch at warfare."

Canto VII

Juan and John Johnson have escaped with two women from the seraglio, and arrive during the siege of Ismail (historically 1790), a Turkish fort at the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea. Field Marshal Suvaroff, an officer in the Russian army, is preparing for an all-out final assault against the besieged fortress. The battle rages. He has been told to "take Ismail at whatever price" by Prince Potemkin, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army. The Christian empress Catherine II is the Russian head-of-state. John Johnson appears to Suvaroff (with whom he has previously served in battle at Widdin) and introduces his friend Juanboth are ready to join the fight against the "pagan" Turks. Suvaroff is unhappy with the women the two men brought, but they state that they are the wives of other men, and that the women aided their escape. Suvaroff consents to the women staying.

Canto VIII
Juan and John join fearlessly and bravely in the savage assault on Ismail. They scale the walls of the town and charge into battle. The conquest of Ismail causes the slaughter of 40,000 Turks, among them women (a few of whom are ravished) and children. Juan nobly rescues a ten-year-old Muslim girl, from two murderous Cossacks intent on killing her, and immediately resolves to adopt her as his own child. A noble Tartar khan valiantly fights to the death beside his five sons, just as instructed by Mahomet, presumably to be rewarded with houris in heaven. Juan is a hero and is sent to Saint Petersburg, accompanied by the Muslim girl, whom he makes a vow to protect. Her name, Leila, is only revealed in Canto X.

Canto IX
Dressed as a war hero in military uniform, Juan cuts a handsome figure in the court of Catherine II, who lusts after him. She is about 48 years old (historically, actually 61 or 62 years old) and "just now in juicy vigour". He becomes one of her favorites and is flattered by her interest as well as promoted for it. "Love is vanity,/Selfish in its beginning as its end,/Except where 'tis a mere insanity". Juan still lovingly cares for the Muslim girl he rescued.

Canto X
Juan falls ill because of the Russian cold and so is sent westward to more temperate England. His job ostensibly is that of a special envoy with the nebulous task of negotiating some treaty or other, but it is nothing more than a sinecure to justify the Empress Catherine in securing his health and lading him with money and expensive gifts.

Canto XI
Juan lands in England and eventually makes his way to London where he is found musing on the greatness of Britain as a defender of freedoms until he is interrupted by a Cockney mugger, demanding money with menace. Juan shoots the man and, being of

strong conscience, then regrets his haste and attempts to care for the dying mugger. However, his efforts fail, and after muttering some last words the mugger dies on the street. Later, Don Juan is received into the English court with the usual wonder and admiration at his looks, dress and mien although not without the jealousy of some of the older peers. In this Canto, Byron famously makes his comment on John Keats, "who was kill'd off by one critique".

Canto XII
Don Juan seeks out a suitable tutor and guardian for Leila, the orphan from the destroyed city of Ismail. He finds one in Lady Pinchbeck, a woman not unassailed by rumours on her chastity, but generally considered a good person and an admirable wit.

Canto XIII
Lady Adeline Amundeville and her husband Lord Henry Amundeville host Juan and others. She is "the fair most fatal Juan ever met", the "queen bee, the glass of all that's fair,/Whose charms made all men speak and women dumb". Diplomatic relations often bring Juan ("the envoy of a secret Russian mission") and Lord Henry together, and he befriends Juan and makes him a frequent guest at their London mansion. The Amundevilles invite numerous distinguished guests for a party at their country estate. The landscape surrounding the estate, as well as the decor within their house is described. This is followed by a mock-catalogues of the ladies, the gentlemen and the activities that they participate in. Byron sees this whole party as English ennui. The canto ends with all of them retiring for the evening.

Canto XIV
Juan acquits himself well on a fox hunt. He is attractive to the ladies, including the Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, who begins to flirt with him. Lady Adeline is jealous of the Duchess (who has had many amorous exploits), and resolves to protect the "inexperienced" Juan from her enticements. Juan and Adeline are both 21 years old. Lady Adeline has a vacant heart and has a cold but proper marriage. She is not in love with Juan, but the poet will only later divulge whether they have an affair (apparently not). The popular saying "truth is stranger than fiction" originates from this canto: "'Tis strange but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction."

Canto XV
Lady Adeline is at risk for losing her honour over Juan. Juan has a seductive manner because he never seems anxious to seduce. He neither brooks nor claims superiority. Adeline advises Juan to get married, but he acknowledges the women he is attracted to tend to be already married. Adeline tries to deduce a suitable match for Juan, but

intentionally omits mention of the 16 year old and enticing Aurora Raby, a Catholic. Juan is attracted to her she is purer than the rest, and reminds him of his lost Haide. An elaborate dinner is described in detail. Juan is seated between Adeline and Aurora. Aurora has little to say initially, and thaws only a little during the dinner.

Canto XVI
Juan is smitten with the beautiful Aurora, and thinks of her on retiring. At night, he walks into the hall, viewing the gallery of paintings. He hears footsteps, and sees a monk in cowl and beads. He wonders if it is a ghost, or just a dream. He does not see the monk's face, though he passes and repasses several times. The next morning in reaction to how pale Juan looks, Adeline turns pale herself, the Duchess of Fitz-Fulke looks at Juan hard, and Aurora surveys him "with a kind of calm surprise". Adeline wonders if he is ill, and Lord Henry guesses that he might have seen the "Black Friar" He relates the story of the "spirit of these walls" who used to be seen often but had not been seen of late. Lord Henry, himself, had seen the Black Friar on his honeymoon. Adeline offers to sing the story of the ghost, accompanying it on her harp. Aurora remains silent, but Lady Fitz-Fulke appears mischievous after the song. The narrator suggests that Adeline had sung this to laugh Juan out of his dismay. Juan's attempts to lift his spirits, as the house bustles in preparation for another feast. Before that, however, a pregnant country girl and other petitioners present themselves to Lord Henry in his capacity as Justice of the Peace. At the banquet, Juan is preoccupied with his thoughts again. When he glances at Aurora, he catches a smile on her cheek, but is uncertain of its meaning, since Aurora sits pale and only a little flushed. Adeline goes about her duties as hostess, while the Duchess of Fitz-Fulke is very much at ease. They retire for the evening. Juan thinks about Aurora, who has reawakened feelings in him which had lately been lost. After going to back to his room, he hears the tiptoe of footsteps again, after sitting around in expectation of the ghost. His doors open, and again it is the sable Friar concealed in his solemn hood. He pursues the friar up against a wall, and then suddenly notices that the "ghost" has sweet breath, a straggling curl, red lips, pearls, and a glowing bust. As the hood falls down, the "friar" is revealed to be the voluptuous Duchess of Fitz-Fulke.

Canto XVII
A Canto that Byron failed to complete but added to in the run up to his death, it lacks any narrative and only barely mentions the protagonist. It is instead a response to his critics who object to his views on the grounds that "If you are right, then everybody's wrong!". In his defence, he lists many great people who have been considered outsiders and revolutionaries including Martin Luther and Galileo.

The Canto ends on the brink of resuming the storyline from Canto The Sixteenth where Don Juan was left in a "tender moonlit situation". Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe". The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for distraction in foreign lands. In a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. The title comes from the term childe, a medieval title for a young man who was a candidate for knighthood.

Origins
The poem contains elements thought to be autobiographical, as Byron generated some of the storyline from experience gained during his travels through Portugal, the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea between 1809 and 1811.[1] The "Ianthe" of the dedication was the term of endearment he used for Lady Charlotte Harley. Charlotte Bacon ne Harley was the second daughter of 5th Earl of Oxford and Lady Oxford Jane Elizabeth Scott nee Harley, about 11 years' old when Childe Harold was first published. Charlotte was the artist Francis Bacon's great-great-grandmother.[2] Throughout the poem Byron, in character of Childe Harold, regretted his wasted early youth, hence re-evaluating his life choices and re-designing himself through going on the pilgrimage, during which he lamented on various historical events including the Iberian Peninsular War among others. Despite Byron's initial hesitation at having the first two cantos of the poem published because he felt it revealed too much of himself,[3] it was published, at the urging of friends, by John Murray in 1812, and brought both the poem and its author to immediate and unexpected public attention. Byron later wrote, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous".[4] The first two cantos in John Murray's edition were illustrated by Richard Westall, well known painter and illustrator who was then commissioned to paint portraits of Byron.

Byronic hero
The work provided the first example of the Byronic hero.[5] The idea of the Byronic hero is one that consists of many different characteristics. The hero must have a rather high level of intelligence and perception as well as be able to easily adapt to new situations and use cunning to his own gain. It is clear from this description that this hero is welleducated and by extension is rather sophisticated in his style. Aside from the obvious charm and attractiveness that this automatically creates, he struggles with his integrity, being prone to mood swings. Generally, the hero has a disrespect for certain figures of authority, thus creating the image of the Byronic hero as an exile or an outcast. The hero also has a tendency to be arrogant and cynical, indulging in self-destructive behaviour which leads to the need to seduce women. Although his sexual attraction through being mysterious is rather helpful, this sexual attraction often gets the hero into trouble.

Characters with the qualities of the Byronic hero have appeared in novels, films and plays ever since.

Structure
The poem has four cantos written in Spenserian stanzas, which consist of eight iambic pentameter lines followed by one alexandrine (a twelve syllable iambic line), and has rhyme pattern ABABBCBCC.

Interpretations
Childe Harold became a vehicle for Byron's own beliefs and ideas; indeed in the preface to canto four Byron acknowledges that there is little or no difference between author and protagonist. According to Jerome McGann, by masking himself behind a literary artifice, Byron was able to express his view that "man's greatest tragedy is that he can conceive of a perfection which he cannot attain".[6]

Cultural references
Parts of it have been quoted towards the end of Asterix in Belgium.