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Chapter 11 - Redeeming Levity

Byron’s Don Juan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2023

Drummond Bone
Affiliation:
Balliol College, Oxford
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Summary

This chapter has two correlative aims: on the one hand it seeks to complicate the customary conception of Byron as a figure of strength, and on the other hand it challenges the commonplace pejorative understanding of levity as a matter of frivolity, irreverence, or licentiousness, by drawing attention to other, more positive forms of lightness that also play a vital role in Byron’s comic masterpiece. More particularly, by reflecting on Don Juan’s ‘three graces’ (the Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, Lady Adeline, and Aurora Raby), the chapter highlights three contrasting models of levity: the carnivalesque, the courtly, and the eschatological. One of the surprising things that emerges from this consideration of the poem’s intermingling of sexual, socio-political, and religious forms of lightness is an underlying posture of epistemological weakness, which both fosters and is fostered by a sceptical openness to possibilities.

Type
Chapter
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The Cambridge Companion to Byron
Second Edition
, pp. 176 - 192
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Redeeming Levity
  • Edited by Drummond Bone, Balliol College, Oxford
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Byron
  • Online publication: 02 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108953863.013
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  • Redeeming Levity
  • Edited by Drummond Bone, Balliol College, Oxford
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Byron
  • Online publication: 02 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108953863.013
Available formats
×

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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Redeeming Levity
  • Edited by Drummond Bone, Balliol College, Oxford
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Byron
  • Online publication: 02 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108953863.013
Available formats
×