Audiobook · read by volunteers
Don Juan, Canto 1
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824)
Read by Peter Gallagher · 7 chapters · 1 h 24
About the book
Don Juan is not the seducer of legend but a good-looking young man to whom things happen, and Lord Byron tells his story in a breezy, mocking voice. In the first canto the young hero grows up in Seville, under the watchful eye of a pious mother, and then runs into trouble with a neighbour’s wife. Digressions, jokes and asides abound, and Byron uses them to attack hypocrisy, cant and poets he disliked. The poem is witty, scandalous and surprisingly modern in its tone. When it first appeared it provoked outrage and admiration in about equal measure. Seven short sections and almost an hour and a half, read by one volunteer, give you an energetic introduction to one of the most entertaining long poems in the language. It is a performance as much as a story.
Introduction
George Gordon, Lord Byron, who lived from 1788 to 1824, was one of the most celebrated and notorious poets of the Romantic age. His life was as famous as his writing, and after leaving England in 1816 under a cloud of scandal, he lived mostly in Italy and Greece. Don Juan is a long narrative poem, based very loosely on the legend of the evil seducer, and he composed it during his self-imposed exile from England.
The first and second of the eventually seventeen cantos appeared anonymously in July 1819 and were greeted with scandal, condemnation, admiration and hilarity. Byron left the poem incomplete at his death, but modern critics generally consider the self-proclaimed epic to be his masterpiece. The poem differs from the traditional story because Juan is passive rather than predatory, and the satire is directed at society rather than at the hero.
Byron’s verse is written in ottava rima, a stanza form of eight lines with an intricate rhyme scheme, and he exploits it for comic effect, often building up to a surprising rhyme. Readers have noticed his conversational voice and his willingness to stop the story to comment on politics, literature or love.
This LibriVox recording covers only the first canto, in seven sections, and lasts about an hour and a half. It is read by a single volunteer, Peter Gallagher. It is a good way to begin, and may leave you wanting to hear the rest of the poem. Since Byron wrote the poem for readers who loved gossip, argument and wit, it is surprisingly lively when spoken, and the stanzas fly by.
Public domain
George Gordon, Lord Byron died in 1824: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text