Castlereagh, an able cabinet minister who did much to make possible Wellington's victory over Napoleon and to save England from defeat, was an unselfish patriot but no sympathizer with self-rule or democracy. Synopsis In this satiric poem, based on the legend of Don Juan, Byron reverses the story, portraying Juan not as a womaniser but as someone easily seduced by women. The savage attack on Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, Foreign Secretary in the reactionary Tory government from 1812 to his suicide in 1822, was motivated by Byron's political liberalism, which tended to be extremist. Byron kept up a running quarrel with the poet laureate, Robert Southey, for years, for poetical, political, and personal reasons, and finally demolished him in his superb 'The Vision of Judgment.' The Dedication, written in 1818, was withheld from publication, on the insistence of John Murray, Byron's publisher, until after Byron's death. Don Juan Lord Byron Home Literature Notes Don Juan Canto I Summary and Analysis Canto I Summary The author begins by saying that since his own age cannot supply a suitable hero for his poem, he will use an old friend, Don Juan. The poet dedicates Don Juan to Robert Southey, who sings the praises of tyrants and who is an apostate from political liberalism. By Lord Byron (George Gordon) And thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth And form so soft, and charms so rare, Too soon return'd to Earth Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed, And o'er the spot the crowd may tread In carelessness or mirth, There is an eye which could not brook A moment on that grave to look. Would Milton, if he were alive, obey the 'intellectual eunuch' Castlereagh, as Southey and Wordsworth do? Castlereagh is a tongue-tied oppressor, a tool of tyranny, and a bungler. As for Byron, he is not competing with them, for he does not consider himself a poet in the sense that they are. Posterity will decide whether they or Walter Scott, Samuel Rogers, Thomas Campbell, Thomas Moore, and George Crabbe will enjoy the largest share of fame. Robert Southey and William Wordsworth, who have both sold themselves to the king, would like to be considered the greatest poets of the age.

Lord byron don juan poem