Manfred and Don Juan

Categories: Don Juan Tenorio José Zorilla Lord Byron Don Juan

Essay, Pages 3 (625 words)

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For this week, I have two reflections of what I consider to be Lord Byron’s “romantic”. The two reflection’s I would like to focus on is the one from Manfred of his desire for “forgetfulness”, and the other is with Don Juan about his sexual relations.

The poem Manfred is a story that consisted of summand spirits, which are seven spirits that control the nature spirits of Earth, Ocean, Air, Night, Mountain, Wind, and Star. Manfred summands these spirits in hopes they could “grant” him a wish on helping him to have forgetfulness; but later finds out they don’t have powers beyond their own realms.

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The reasoning Manfred asks the spirits for their help is because he had sexual relations with his half-sister. This is what I consider having to deal with the romantics of this poem. The spirits bring a faintly ghost of Manfred’s half-sister in front of him and she speaks to him granting him forgiveness for what had happened with him, but that he will die the following day.

This is ironic as well as the image granting his forgiveness is of the person with whom action, he seeks forgiveness from. I feel this poem goes along with Byron’s life because he too had sexual relationships with his half-sister as well. For most people this is considered to be wrong and disturbing because of incest, but for Byron I feel this is what he finds to be “romantic”. If you read through his poems, he really does make fun of what the other poets consider to be romantic, and that is why I feel this might be his sense of romantic.

The poem Don Juan is a story that consist of multiple sexual relationships, that I feel are Byron’s way of showing romantic. Juan grew up in a home with his parents in Seville where his mother had a married best friend named Donna Julia, where in these stanza’s, 184-188, states Julia had an affair on her husband with Juan and he is there to catch them:

“Alfonso grappled to detain the foe,

And Juan throttled him to get away,

And blood (‘twas from the nose) began to flow;

At last, as they more faintly wrestling lay,

Juan contrived to give an awkward blow,

And then his only garment quite gave way;

He fled, like Joseph, leaving it; but there,

I doubt, all likeness ends between the pair” (1481-1488).

Julia had tried to resist Juan but just couldn’t bear to resist him no more. Another example regarding the romantic part of this story is when Juan had to be shipped off and his ship was wrecked Juan eventually makes it to land where a woman named Haidée finds him and the two fell in love. Haidée’s father, a pirate, makes money selling slaves and finds out about Juan and ships him into the slave market, where eventually he finds another woman come to his rescue. This poem too I feel represents Byron’s life because he also had affairs with multiple woman, and where as Juan was considered a “womanizer”. Byron, I feel considers the affairs, sexual intercourse and being in love with multiple woman is his way of considering romantics in this poem. As is saying, Byron isn’t a “normal” romantic poet, but he is still considered one. Byron enjoys making fun, or in other words finds it “comical” when the other romantical poet’s poems engage about “falling in love”. Byron’s thoughts of romantic poems have more to do with sleeping around with whomever whether they were married or not.