Introduction
Love is a recurrent subject in literature; it has
been approached in several ways. Sex, which is an integrate part of love, was a
topic of predilection of many authors, Lord Byron is part of them. He was one
of the poets that knew how to shell the mechanism of men-women relationship
without isolating his egoist aspect. This work will explore the misfortune,
such as aspiration of human being, we will discuss also a delicate subject of
libertine life that led the debate of moral versus the immoral, pure or impure.
This debate is important because of the similarities between the psychological
aspect of the character and our today's world. We will show how the poet
implies his opinion through his character Don Juan and what are his suggestions
about the question: What is Byron's concept of love?
This work is divided in three parts; in the first chapter, we
discuss the poet's position vis-à-vis of men-women relationship, in
suggesting that the concept of libertinism is a manner to fight women
oppression. In the second chapter, we were interested in Byron's approach
toward the emancipated women who are sexually active, his favorable position to
libertinism and his vivacity to advocate the right of women to take the sexual
initiative to subtract from the dictate impose by men and society. We also
illuminate Don Juan relationship with women who surround him in trying to put
the light in the psychological aspect of his adventure or even the pathologic
aspect of his relationship. Finally, in the third chapters, we dealt with a
comparative study between Don Juan by Byron and the other Juan legends and its
impact on western literature and liberal thinking, how Byron creates a new
debate, the one of sexual freedom of women.
Chapter one
1. Women Love and Sexuality:
Love is subjective and derivative theme, and human
being's emotion is a mirror to the feeling. The carnal desire is a part of the
procession; this means that there is no love without physical attraction,
although the opposite is possible; it means that there is sexual act without
love. We can have a sexual affair without love emotion, so this is only the
technical practice of this one, or at least temporary satisfaction. Sexual
relationships according to the poet, women, restraint to play a passive role in
love affairs, create confusion in the perception men -women relationship. So,
are women an object as a loved being or as a desired being?
In the first canto, the first love affair of Juan is with the
fabulous Julia, wife of Don Alfonso, old men of fifty years, when she was only
twenty-three. He says:
«Wedded She was some years, and to a Man
Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;
And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE
'Twere better to have TWO of five and twenty,
Ladies even of the most uneasy Virtue
Prefer a Spouse whose age is short of thirty.» (Don
juan canto 1 -V62)
Julia is an unsatisfied woman in her marriage, a marriage in
where the two partners tolerate each other's faults, without passion. Her lack
of love and sexual life turn into oppression. As she says:
«It was for this that I became a bride!
For this in silence I have suffered long
A husband like Alfonso at my side;» (Don
Juan. Canto1, V145. P54.)
Julia wanted Juan, she fell in love with him and
chose him as a lover, she wanted to deliver herself from this oppression, and
Juan was her ideal lover. The only one that will satisfy her not only sexually
but also emotionally, in loving him, in one hand ,she will compensate her lack
and in the other one, take a kind of revenge from her frigid husband. Many
women have only the way of disobedience and sin to escape marital oppression
She was a woman object from Byron's point of view, not only
because she was submissive to her husband but also submissive toward the
society morality, marital status and conjugal ethics. She was fighting between
desiring her lover and the morality that prohibited this kind of illicit
behavior. Byron says:
«And Julia's Voice was lost, except in Sighs,
Until too late for useful conversation;
The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes -
I wish indeed they had not had occasion -
But who, Alas! can love, and then be wise?
Not that Remorse did not oppose temptation,
A little still She strove, and much repented,
And whispering «I will ne'er consent» -
consented. -«
(DJ. Canto1,V117. P43)
Her act ,»illicit» in a moral point of view, but not
for Lord Byron, the poet admires women that deliver themselves with their
autonomy and search the happiness where it is proposed. Julia yield to
temptation, and satisfied her desire even if it was prohibited, and Juan here
plays the role of the savior, because he takes her away from solitude. He
implicitly or explicitly procured love that she was in need, marriage prison,
and seeking her happiness that she lacks in her marriage, she became free from
the social and traditional chains. The second love affair of Don Juan is with
the courageous Haidee, she represents the natural passion of love, she was
attractive to Juan in natural and spontaneous way, the emotion of love that
they shared was really authentic , and Byron by this episode wanted to show the
link between the body and the mind, the physical and the spiritual, and emotion
and reason.
She was not enchained by the marital situation but by the
patriarchal one, Lambro (the father) oppressed her and was a kind of a wall
between her and her lover Juan. Therefore, in yielding to her natural desire,
she also in the one hand had been satisfied sexually and emotionally and on the
other hand she escaped from the father authority. The love of Juan and Haidee
is both innocent and guilty. It is innocent in its naturalness, its
self-giving; but it is guilty in that it partakes of the primal guilt, the
original sin, the Fall. Byron and William Blake stand out amongst the Romantics
in their profound conviction of this primal flaw in the nature of man.
«But sweeter still than this, than these, than
all, Is first and passionate love--it stands
alone, Like Adam's recollection of his
fall; The tree of knowledge has been
pluck'd--all's known-- And life yields nothing further to
recall Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so
shown, No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven Fire which Prometheus filch'd
for us from heaven.»
(Don Juan.Canto1, V127)
From the reference in the Bible, Adam and Eve are banished
from Eden due to theirs eating a forbidden fruit. Such as the sacred teaches
us, men are separated from God by sin. But Byron's view in this case, that the
fall of Adam is not a sin but a sweet fall, it is a key to open the gate of
knowledge, requiring the redemption to insure the possibility of salvation,
simply because humans learns from committed errors and after the regret we seek
for redemption and the pardon , Here active women seek for love independently,
choosing their happiness. Thus, we clearly find that Byron attitude toward love
and a sexual issue is positive, especially human being's passionate and natural
love desire. Both Julia and Haidee are satisfied with Juan; their act excites
them on the one hand because they were in need of this, and what Juan procured
to them certainly will compensate their lack of love.
Secondly, in fact of been unlawful, by doing it, they escapes
from the husband -father weight and it is a kind of revenge, consciously or
unconsciously, women are ready for all to attains their aims, even by doing
evil things.
For a woman, assuming her social position suggests the
acceptance of the submission of these ones, Being considered as an object,
being a prude or frivolous. According to Byron, the conservatism leads to the
alienation of women. Therefore, the real woman for Byron is the one who assumes
her role of object woman, while arrogating the right to discharge it or to
submit it while she has the desire. Both of Julia and Haidee followed their
hearts and chose Juan deliberately as a lover; this means for him that women
are an innate object, however, they must have the choice to be submissive or
not, to offer themselves depending on their desires in spite of the
difficulties that they encounter.In Julia-Juan and Haidée-Juan affairs,
Juan «punished» them. One is sent to a convent and the other dies.
Thus, the more unconventional love we desire, the more we pay the price.
A woman who chose willingly to satisfy her desire is a
real act of courage for Byron, because love experience is simply a natural
response on an instinctive feeling or need. The author shows via his work that
human beings need satisfaction unless he will be unhappy so he called for an
unorthodox love. Julia cheated her husband as a result of an unhappy marriage
and a poor sexual life. The only way to satisfy her desires is to yield to
Juan's seduction. The poet supports the idea of the predominance of choice in
the sexual liberty, this means that there is no liberal case without a choice,
it is a «sine qua non» equation, and we cannot have sexual freedom
without free will.
The second sex, uses the erotic subterfuge to have an
erotically active life, liberated from the constrained of hypocritical
morality. Women were since the dawn of time under the authority of the father,
the husband or the sacred -religious morality, hunched under the weight of
religion, morality or society codes 'minor for life', this same society, which
is cruel toward women especially, for whom priority was procreation. These
sexual intentions, under such regulation, women become inferior and dependent,
that is the inequality that the poet denounces.
He considers both the two sexes equal, Thus, it also means
that women can express their natural desires as men did. Simon de Beauvoir sees
that it is difficult to stay with only one partner and resist new sexual
experiences. She says: «To ask two spouses bound by practical, social
and moral ties to satisfy each other sexually for their whole lives is pure
absurdity.»(De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second
Sex, And here Byron observes that the hypocrisy of social
mores, Christianity, and conservatism are unjust toward women in judging them.
While they give response to their natural need or submit to temptation, they
are seen with a bad eye, in a negative manner, while for a man it is tolerable
and understandable that he has a natural-instinctive desire that he has to
satisfy, whereas the desire is the same for both sexes. Women are limited to
their natural role (reproduction, education of children) and all what concerns
a housewife ,De Beauvoir explains this clearly in her book The Second
Sex:
«In actuality the relation of the two sexes is not
quite like that of two electrical poles, for man represents both the positive
and the Neutral, as is indicated by the common use of man to designate human
beings in general; whereas woman represents only the negative, defined by
limiting criteria, without reciprocity. «( S.De Beauvoir.
The Second Sex. 1949.p6)
Byron cannot understand why for men it is acceptable to
express their desire and satisfy them without taboo or bad incomprehension,
while for a woman it is frowned if she satisfies her natural need or desire. He
said:»Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, is women whole
existence.» It is clear that the poet's love affairs preoccupied most
of his daily life, what he would show in Don Juan is the exploration
of human feeling especially passion and the nature of love. Traditional rules
teach women to follow the patriarchal code and be chaste and obedient, and this
is exactly what the poet wants to go on through and transcend, in canto 1,
Byron depicts Juan's hometown as «a pleasant city,/famous for oranges
and women..»(Canto1.8 -2). Therefore, he admires love so much and
thinks that human beings should cherish their time for seeking happiness.
The author admires the treasure of love and expresses his deep
admiration and sympathy toward women who suffer from an extreme loneliness due
to a lack of love, women that are trapped by the prison of marriage; we see
that Byron desires women's love and instinctive comfort.
But here also we are a little bit confused, because Byron say
that love is instinctive, how can love be instinctive if animal have the
instinct only for procreation, if the animal instinct was for procreation, How
can we say that licentiousness1 is instinctive? Why all religions
prohibited fornication?!
If we follow our instinct we will make anarchy, we will be
mad, we would not control our drives, and this attitude is dangerous and can
destroy society and human values. Instinct does not means obligation and the
poet is defining love as an obligatory and cannot be resisted, why the truth is
love and lust instinct can be resisted if we train our souls: Sounds to me
like both love and lust are instincts, but like all instincts among sapient
beings they fit a cultigenic framework. "Instinct" does not mean "permanently
obligatory" - an irish setter can resist its instinct to chase a ball if it has
guide dog training. The urge to chase is no less an instinct just because one
can adjust it.((http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LoveIsNotAnInstinct)
For us, it was more a personal reaction against conservatism
and personal desires that other; Byron revolts against morality that limited
women only for reproduction and housewives. He denounces the hypocrisy of
society that submitted women, his sympathy toward them was certainly pure and
honest. However, he was guided by his personal desire, it is clear that Byron's
true faith in love and passionate heart is pure and devoted in a real way not
external or hypocrisy that handicap human being in his pursuit of love and
happiness
The poet implicates his love affairs, implicit is that he
loves women and enjoythe mutual treatment in love and let men devote much to
their lovers. After all,love is based on mutual trust and equality.
Thus,Don Juan helps Byron to express his own point of view about love
and women.
1Licentiousness: Promiscuous and unprincipled in
sexual matters.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/licentious
(August, 31, 2013. 19:31)
Eroticism not as a stylistic point of view, but as a life
mode, love where the self- quest through the other fascinates the poet. Women
occupy a crucial role in the biggest literary works and writers inspirations,
Oscar Wilde says: «The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield
it.» (Wilde, Oscar. The Picture Of Dorian Gray. P29.)Lord
Byron was one of these authors that was guided by the most primary instinct to
a world of renewal, the quest of personal satisfaction.
Byron's concept of women is not subject to the old disciplines
like women's «chastity». Therefore, from here, he wants the reader to
know that love, which includes freedom, is true love. If both the man and the
woman in a relationship accept the limitless chance of love, they can possess
their experience of love, and make their relationship stronger and on wealthy
bases.
This point attracts us a lot, because as a male author, Byron
reveals more female inner voices than women writers did, not only because in
his poem he used female images, but also Byron's life filled with amorous love
and lovely women as to women's sexuality and emotional desire.
2-Liberal concept of Love and Freedom of Sex
(Materialism of Love):
Love is one of the most mysterious human emotions to fascinate
Lord Byron. His
Unconventional adventures of love are both sentimental and
physical. The physical love integrates emotion into the body, through his
character Don Juan, Lord Byron continued to demonstrate his materialist
conviction of love, a love that is not gloomy but cheerful.
«Byron revives this sexually radical character in a bid to
unveil the repressed sexuality caused by conventional morality»
(Byron's Materialism of Love: Don
Juan.1819, Terence H. W. Shih:p7)
His appeal for a more 2unorthodox love morality and
his libertine attitude toward morality is a reaction against conservatism. Don
Juan was stigmatized as a womanizer or «illicit» because of his
current sexual relationship, and it dissatisfaction and unsatisfied love, a
womanizer consciously or subconsciously resists permanent relationships.
Byron employs a satiric writing telling the story of a
sexually notorious character or `womanizer' named Don Juan to mock sexual
conservatism and suggests his materialism of love, through his figure to
explore liberated sexuality and humankind:
«I WANT a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan,
We all have seen him, in the pantomime
Sent to the devil, somewhat ere this time.»
(DJ, 1.1-8)
We can understand by this that it is not the Spanish figure
that Byron uses, but another one who is more libertine and sexually active, and
who challenges the hypocrisy of society. Byron strives to liberate human nature
and reassess sexual morality that not only restricts human nature, but can also
make human beings unhappy, the best example that we can take, is the case of
Juan's parents. The poet illustrates the marriage prison that repressed women,
and a life without sex, expressed his compassion toward Donna Inez whose
marriage fail not only because Don José had extra-conjugal affairs but
her need to satisfy her desire (Byron's Materialism of Love: Don
Juan. 1819 Terence H. W. Shih)
The poet calls for an unorthodox love and libertine behavior
because of his hate of the hypocrite society that he himself belongs to, we
have to know that Lord Byron was an aristocrat; he lived with this circle, and
was read by the same elite. It is a kind of a tragicomic3 situation,
simply because the same elite of society who traced the line or made the limit
of the morality were as Byron, libertine. Many of the nobles and high-placed
people have illicit sexual affaires, so how can we judge an act while we
practice the same? What we want to say is that before and after Byron, the
world knew this behavior existed and Lord Byron was not bad, mad neither
dangerous to know.
For Byron this behavior has nothing of irrational or immoral,
because from Byron's point of view, love is natural and marriage is artificial,
so why should we follow an artificial code and deny the pure one, which is
natural? Conventional love which is limited in marriage versus the
unconventional one, which is illicit but natural. However, the rational aspect
of licentiousness is contradictory with the human nature, because if we follow
what the poet suggests about liberal sexuality, we will let our wishes and
drives get the upper hand on our acts. The Human being is able to distinguish
between moral or immoral, the good or the bad, these led him to take another
way of his own drives, so the concept of libertine life is not rational.
2tragicomic: a play or novel containing elements of
both comedy and tragedy. Tragicomedy as a genre.
3While human faculties allow to consider the rational and
irrational
In Juan's adventures we see the individualistic aspect of Juan
in his love affairs, there is always a character injured by Juan acts, for
Julia episode it was the husband Don Alphonso, in Haidee episode it was the
father Lambro. What we want to say is that the egoism of Juan on in his choices
and selfishness on others, the misfortunes caused to two characters were the
consequences of Juan's individualism. We cannot justify the pain of certain
people just because it makes the happiness of the others, we cannot excuse the
pain's brid by certain acts by pretext to satisfy others persons, that why
liberal love that the poet defends is selfish. We remark also in these two
different episodes that Juan is a kind of profiteer, because as Byron himself,
Don Juan is an eternal unsatisfied lover, he tries new experiences, new lovers,
and he loves women. This point is the controversial aspect of the poet, his
hedonism when he denounces hypocritical world while he himself is a hypocrite
somewhere, Byron's hedonism4 in seeing only in one point but his
hypocrisy and controversial aspect in imposing his point of view and only his
suggestion is the way to follow.
Men propose, women dispose, passively to men's pleasure. Byron
rejects this way to treat women because as a man they have a passion for love
and sexual desire to appease. Lord Byron insists on the liberty of women in
choosing their ideal lover and sexual partner when they have the desire,
otherwise it will be deep love.
`The libido is constantlyand regularly male in essence,
whether it appears
in man or in woman.'(de Beauvoir from freud)120-21
Freud admits that as men women also have libido and desires so
Byron also tries to show us this remark.
4hedonism: ·The pursuit of pleasure; sensual
self-indulgence.
·Philosophy the ethical
theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the
highest good and proper aim of human life.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/hedonismSeptember,
1, 2013 4:59
Since Byron's Character Don Juan hates aristocracy, he thinks
that everyone has the choice in love. Byron arranges Juan's Journey of love to
communicate the possibilities and freedom of choice in love. Love is not
concerned with hierarchy, race, age, and other social differences. By this,
Byron demonstrates that not only men can choose their brides, but also even
women can enjoy the pleasure of searching a lover and their happiness.Byron's
philosophy of love demonstrates his disagreement with contemporary sexual
morality and chimes with our current gender discourse, and shows his
materialistic aspect of love. He takes Plato for a ride saying:
«Oh! Plato! Plato! You have paved the way,
With your confounded phantasies, to more
Immoral conduct by the facied Sway
Your System feigns o'er the controulless Core
Of human hearts, than all the long Array
Of poets and romencers: -You're a Bore,
A Charlatan, a Coxcomb - and have been,
At the best, no more than a Go-between»-
(Don Juan, Canto 1, V 116.)
This proves that Byron suggests his materialist conviction
about love, points the finger on the metaphysical one. Suggesting instead that
we would be better to ground our responses in physical reality. However, here
also, if we see what the poet suggests, brings us to think that it is true that
women have the right to choose willingly their partners, but in taking into
consideration the moral aspect. In rejecting the ethics, it can create some
complication, and hesitations ; should we make our love above all the
socio-religious codes even if it is not acceptable or still obey to these
ethics ?.«A young bride is like a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is
like a flower that had been walked over.»
Honore
de Balzaccontre .A married woman should not have extra conjugal
sexual relationships even if it is her strong desire, or in the name of
love.
Chapter Two
1. Reversal of gender role:
As female become active in seeking their lovers, men turn to
passive; by this, Byron wants to show the equalities of sex. In Byron's
thoughts, Women have the right to choose and transgress the limits of the
regulations, he shows that the only way for women to take their autonomy is to
be active, and Juan is passive to these women acts. Female masculinity in their
choices and acts and men femininity in accepting these ones, in doing this, the
oppression «disappears» and women become equal to men. Only in
transgressing the limits of morality regulations, women become free from these
chains, and show the equality of gender.
Byron transforms women sexuality from passive restriction to
active virtue; women who fulfill their desires seen as rational and positive.
Juan is a victim of love; he passively submits to female predators, he
passively falls in love with all the women he encounters through his journeys.
Byron portrays women whose take the chance to be happy, in setting these female
figures in different love relationships, the author wants to show that women
also have the right to control their sentimental life, and here ,man loses his
domination. In Gulbeyaz's episode, Lord Byron shows women authority over men,
by this act he reverses the traditional normative gender position and
transgresses the hierarchical men-women relationship.
In the poet`s point of view, women's sexuality should not be
repressed, instead it must be released as it is natural, instinctive and
rational, especially the quest of love. In Don Juan, Byron
characterizes women as being active and decisive toward their love. While at
that times, they were seen as housewives, limited to the function of mothers,
emotionally or sexually. They did not have an active sexual life. Nevertheless,
in the poem, Lord Byron's women think only about sex, as soon as they see the
handsome Juan; they fall in love with him and immediately want him. As it was
said before, it is a rebellion against the society that limited them into their
natural role of procreation.
In the Turkish episode, Gulbeyaz is authoritarian and powerful
since she is a Sultana, aggressive in seeking love, while power and domination
are attributed traditionally to men. In this episode, Byron shows a woman using
sexual power relationship as men did in aims to advocate the equality of sexes.
Conventional mentality at that time, does not reject this idea of equality but
Byron suggests a half equality because it concerns only love and sexual aspect
of women, while a real equality touches a real liberty for women in other
fields (social, educational)
This pseudo-equality shows another time Byron's egoism*.. It
is a half equality, that means in the name of liberty and equality, women
should have only the right to satisfy their love accomplishment and release
their sexuality. The poet denies all other rights that women were in need to,
secondly, men-women parity should not exist simply, because the real combat,
the real parity is the socio-class one. Blinded by his personal
libido5and thoughts, Lord Byron defends women's licentiousness while
in giving this to women, they escape from their natural role, and they will ask
more and more. Therefore, in having sexual tolerance, anarchy and chaos will
take surface. A false fight will be created; a clash between men and women,
about equal rights. While the real clash is the one of status. There is a
mono-victimization, those of women, that means Byron claims a repression only
on women while men also suffer from lack of love, Poverty is on men and women,
liberty is on men and women. It a victimary vision which is to say «women
are alienated by men and they have to free themselves from male domination
«A woman who has a high social position does not have the same combat as
the one who is a housewife. from a feminist point of view, most of the
revendication coming from women are from the bourgeoisie ones, to escape from
boredom they advocate their right and denounces their submission to
husband-men.
6Libido: Psychoanalysis the energy of the
sexual drive as a component of the life instinct.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/libido?q=libidoSeptember,
1st, 2013 5:41
7At first, suggesting the right in which women's sexual and
emotional desires must be satisfied as men, but not the other rights that women
needed at that time
All Juan partners had a certain social status. Julia wife of
Don Alphonso who is a «Don» the Spanish equivalence of Lord. Gulbeyaz
wife of a sultan, and Haidée who has not a noble status but was rich,
so, women figures that Byron portraits was from the bourgeois class, women free
from any ethics certainly derive from their primitive and natural role which is
reproduction. So even traditional ethics and rules can create some difficulties
in human pursuit of love, and accomplishing their desires in tracing the limits
that human being have not to cross but this regulations advocate the same
values of women's first roles: procreation, motherhood. And if we change or
modify this mechanism it will cause a dysfunction in the own identity of
men-women, because If they neglect the function of wife in women, following
personal satisfaction idea, we cannot neglect also the function of reproduction
of women.
What Byron suggests moves women away from what is sensed
and this does not mean that equality of sex is not good, but from the
prehistory, women were dominated, not submissive but complementary to men. In
the Bible, man is described as the head of women, each gender have a role, but
they are complementary to each other. If we let confusion setup we will be in
an absurd conflict, which is men-women warfare, we have to say that in Byron's
men-women relationship persona is set to show women characters fighting moral
authority and ethics, in order to prove their equality with men. However, to
create the discord between women and society or women-men clash will succeed to
nothing, simply because the conflict is not between men and women, as we said
before, there is no competition between women and men and female have not to
prove their equality to men in turning active and licentiousness is not the
best way. Sexual revisionists proclaimed a modernist liberation from a
repressive Victorian past, and subsequent historiography has tended to accept
that frame of reference. Michel Foucault has absolutely criticized this
paradigm, arguing that the supposed repression of the nineteenth century can
better be seen as a "deployment of sexuality," the creation of new bourgeois
discourses about sexuality, which in fact "incited" a greater intensity of
consciousness about and desire for a "truth" of sex than had existed in earlier
historical times. Hence, the Victorian prescription of restrained sexual
activity, and modest sexual speech did not mean the absence or a repression" of
sexuality but rather focused psychic attention on it.
At the heart of the knowledge produced by such discourses were
shifting relations of power between parents and children, women and the male
medical establishment, the state and fertile couples, and psychiatry and sexual
"deviants." Foucault sees the early twentieth century sexual revolution, the
so-called anti-repressive struggle, as "a tactical shift and reversal" in the
deployment of sexuality but not a fundamental break with the past. If human
nature is two, and always divided, Irigaray argues, then civil identity is also
two and divided; the two of nature needs to be brought into the two of culture.
The one is an illusion of patriarchy, while the two threatens the phallocentric
order and challenges the supposition that universality must be singular. The
scandalous idea of a feminine subjectivity means that the universal must be
doubled. Doubling the universal does not, for Irigaray, mean merely replacing a
neutral universality (something that holds true for all human beings) with two
wholly distinct and separate truths. A universal that has been doubled has also
been split or divided from itself, no longer one, and Irigaray sees in this the
possibility for cultivating sexual difference and overcoming a culture of
sexual indifference that is dependent on the idea of the generic human.(SOURCE
)
In Byron's proposition, a liberal love , moral
transcendence, wich is liberated from socio-cultural codes, but at the same
time, this proposition submits women to other codes, which are the progressive
codes, born in the name of liberty of the individuals. If the obedient woman
who is submissive to her husband and marital regulations, have a traditional
identity, in escaping this regulations and crossing the limits of morality,
will surely be free from them. However, she becomes submissive to another form
of regulation, which with time, will kill her own identity.If the oppressed
woman who obeys to her husband and accepts to be under his authority, walks in
the opposite of the ethics to escape from oppression, she will certainly in one
hand become free in choosing her lover and satisfy her desire, but she will in
the other hand be submissive to another authority, which is her personal drive.
She will become slave of her own desires. This is the reason
why monotheist6 religions do not tolerate non-conventional sexual
relationships.
Byron represents a minority thinking that have the right to
exist, but not representative comparing to socio-religious rules. The peasant
women will certainly not identifie herself in byron's suggestion. His ideal
lover is a woman who have the courage to assume herself, but even the opposite
image of traditional women that do not accept the unconventional love assume
also her choice. In short, the one who respects traditional values and ethics
does not mean that she is retrograde or not courageous. If being libertine is a
progressive sign, to offer herself to only one person is not reactionary, or
the `executive women', modern women, as we see nowadays; sex before marriage,
libertine sexual life, homosexuality are seen as progressive concepts, and
traditional morality is seen as retrograde minds. So in following Byron's
suggestions, the pseudo-liberated woman who have a liberated sexual life is a
modern one, while the one who still obey to women ethics is the frustrated one,
even traditional morality makes some walls between human desires. We cannot say
that libertine behavior is the way to follow. Nor the chestiest one is the
absolute one, from the libertine women or the most chaste one they will be seen
and judged according to these same codes
To simplify, to be chaste or libertine we will always be
judged by the others, the liberated women as sinner, impure, the chestiest one
as a retrograded, not modern, Byron's suggestion is far of women nature,
rationality and good thinking, because sexual liberty caused more misfortune
and tragedy than happiness. All Juan's conquests knew an unhappy end in his
poem. Temporal satisfaction is not true love, taking the pleasure now, suffer
later, libertine life have consequences that may be taking into
consideration
6Monotheist: the doctrine or belief that there is
only one God.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/monotheism?q=monotheist#monotheism__4September,
1st, 2013 5:52.
«If thou readest the Scripture,» said the Jewess,
«and thelives of the saints, only to justify thine own license and
profligacy, thy crime is like that of him who extracts poison from the most
healthful and necessary herbs.»(Scott, Walter.
Ivanohe.1819. PDF Document,Pennsylvania State University. Ed
Jim Manis. 2002.)
2-Juan-Women Relationship:
Byron portraits his character Juan as a love victim; during his
travels, he had several of love relationships, from Julia, passing by
Haidée to the powerful Gulbeyaz... He makes to his female characters
different personalities, each one knows and shares love with Juan, but he
always leaves his lovers, and does not stay in a permanent love relationship
with them. As Foucault says: "Don Juan is human character led against his
own will by the obscure craziness of sex.» Don Juan is not only
enjoying his conquests, but he is running away, from responsibility, monogamy
and reproduction. In fact, he is constantly on the move. Renos Mandis proposes
that this jumping is part of a kind of hyperactive syndrome, an inability to
remain, to stay put:«Don Juan is in perpetual motion. He cannot stop.
If anything, masculinity is experienced as a "lack". It is something that you
have to have which means that you don't "have" it. And you can "have" it only
by doing it,. In other words, it is only other people[who] can guarantee your
masculinity. Or, you need this guarantee and feel you have to have it in order
to survive.»(Anna Furse ,Don Juan .who?,p3)
Mandis holds that Juan fears for his insecure sexuality, he
wants more and more women in a manner to prove his masculinity. His sexual
partners guarantee his masculinity, and prove their femininity, in releasing
their sexual activity at the same time. Juan suffer from latent masculinity
that makes his behavior, he wants absolutely to have sex with all women he
encounters in one hand and seek his mother in other female, according to Carl
Jung, Juan suffers also of mother-complex he argues: «are
homosexuality and Don Juanism, and sometimes also impotence. In homosexuality,
the son's entire heterosexuality is tied to the mother in an unconscious form;
in Don Juanism, he unconsciously seeks his mother in every woman he
meets...Because of the difference in sex, a son's mother-complex does not
appear in pure form. This is the reason why in every masculine mother-complex,
side by side with the mother archetype, a significant role is played by the
image of the man's sexual counterpart, the anima.»
Psychologist Carl Jung believes that DonJuanism is an
unconscious desire of a man to seek his mother in every woman he encounters.
However, he does not see the trait as entirely negative; Jung feels that
positive aspects of DonJuanism included heroism, perseverance and strength of
will. In all Juan`s love affairs, female character were seen as mother
protectors of Juan who was a child, passive under active women power. His
relation can be seen as mother-son relationship, because Juan is seeing his
lost mother in other female characters, he is consciously or unconsciously
seeking for motherhood love and his lovers want to protect him as mothers. the
poet shows women maternal instinct by this. We can see this in the poem when
Byron says:
«And when into the Cavern Haidee stepped
All timidly, yet rapidly, She saw
That like an Infant Juan sweetly slept» (
DJ. Canto2, V143.)
So, we can also see Juan-women relationship as women-child; Julia
defends Juan when Don Alfonso enters the room in which she and Juan were
together,she hides him from her own husband. Haidée protects Juan from
her father Lambro in taking care of him in cave: «But taking him into
her father's House/ Was not exactly the best way to save, / But like Conveying
to the Cat the Mouse, / Or People in a trance into their grave»
(DJ. Canto2, V130) while the powerful Gulbeyaz bought him
in salve market to free him from this situation. So, Byron emphasizes women's
protection of their lover as a mother on her child. The more love Juan
encounters the more he escapes; all his amorous affairs are temporal ones. In
each land he tries a new experience, lives it, shares it and leave it. In this
point of view, Byron tries to tell us that the ideal love is something hard to
reach; all the obstacles that love protagonist had known and the difficulties
that they had transgressed in their relationships, finished to cut the link
between them, separate the lovers. By this, the poet wants to show that
innocent love cannot survive, and the state of mind of the ideal one is an
illusion, unattainable, this conquest of ideal lover, which knows many
socio-religious walls and difficulties was made to end, because a such illicit
love could not survive in a such regulated world. Even in their deep
conscience, Juan's lovers know that this love is a temporal one and surly will
know an unhappy end but they take the risk, and wish that Juan will stay with
them. Women challenge limit of social morality and boundaries and give a chance
to be with their lover. Juan remains a stranger who propos his love to
these female characters, a part from the passion of love and sexual pleasure
that he offers to his lovers, Juan gives a certain hope to these women, a faith
in a free love, a pure and the ideal one exists, and with him they will
discover it.' Love me now and leave me after'. These women had this idea in
their minds, living the present moment, what they shared with Juan could be
what all women should have. All of them discover a such exited sexuality and
passion and felt that they control their sexuality. By this, their relation
with Juan breaks the patriarchal system. Byron shows that everyone has the
ability to pursuit love only if he/she regards the basic standards of freedom.
As wars, even though they are terrible, they one justifiable; so, according to
Byron, pure love and happiness also are, the pain that the illicitness will
create is like collateral victims of wars, they are justifiable. Byron
legitimates the unconventional love in the name of freedom, in pretexting
women's sexual oppression and repression. However, social codes and morality do
not exactly repress, simply because prohibition is not oppression. The
oppression is when we punish someone while he does not know which rule he
infringes. the traced limits have not as aim to oppress, In the contrary they
protect human being from faulting. We cannot justify our happiness by others'
pain, how painful is Byron concept of love and How many hearts Juan breaks and
the troubles he leaves around him?.
We remark also that all Juan's conquests were nobles,
descendant from a certain bourgeoisie. In setting Juan`s love affairs only with
noble women, the poet satires the system sustained by the noble class, as we
see all his lovers were powerful financially and have a certain class position.
So, in having sexual affairs with them, Byron sends a message to the nobles of
aristocracy, that he has a strong hatred, this shows the anti-conformist side
of the poet.
Secondly, Byron's female characters do not represent a big
quota of women for that time, so women that read Byron certainly do not
identify themselves. So, his concept about love goes more for women from
bourgeoisie than the standard housewives, this is another contradiction of the
author when normally love, is universal.
In short, Juan-women relationships are complex, each of both
sides have his own aims in offering each self to the other. She, in order to
escape from the oppression and her lack of passion and poor sexual life. And
Don Juan cannot reject the sublime invitation, here Byron's suggestion of love
is a love which gives a mutual satisfaction between two sides, while the
traditional one should unite the lovers, but here we saw a short, powerful
share with sad separations.
Chapter three
1-Byron's Don Juan vs Traditional Juan
Legend:
Byron's Don Juan is so original that we cannot say
that it is influenced by the other Don Juan legend (Moliére, Tirso or
Mozart). Contrary to the other Don Juans, Byron describes the youth of his
hero,he was the first writer to give consideration to the youth of Don Juan
while in Moliére's or Tristo's drama , the audience views directly a
mature Juan. Therefore, Byron was the first to use this legend as a young boy
and what makes him a man. From his early young love affairs into maturity, even
Byron's plot have no relation with other Juan legends,Byron contributed to the
body of Juan, being himself a Juan,the poet had a such unique insight in his
protagonist .
We can consider Juan as Byron's double, their resemblance
and similarities are clear:Lust for women,love affairs and sexual
scandals...ect.Byron's Juan is more biographical or at least influenced by the
life of the poet .«Lord Byron knew how to paint only one man:
himself» (Stendhal,from Oeuvres Completes v. 35 Memories of
Lord Byron. 1829) There is also Juan's passivity in Byron's version that is
not identical to Juan legend, in Moliére's, he is more active seducer
while In Byron's version Juan is conquered by his lovers.«Byron's
moral forbids a hero who is an active seducer.»(George
M.Ridenour.The Style of Don Juan.Yale University Press.
1960.p69-70)
Byron's Juan is the conquered,victim of love while the
traditional figure of Don Juan is a candit Spanish seducer of virgins, while
Moliére or Mozart's is seductive,and active. Finally, Byron give a
sympathetic presentation of his hero he is the only one that makes Juan
protagonist not aggressive or arrogant, he is more innocent and naïve, his
Juan is charming and passive,by this Byron had known a few imitators. The most
Important is George Bernard Shaw, who, oddly enough, ridicules Byron's Don Juan
asnot being a trueDon Juan figure, while John Tanner, in Shaw's Man and
Superman,is more than a little like Byron's hero.
2-Byron's Don Juan Impact on Western
Literature:
Byron influences many writers and artists of the
Romantic Movement7 during the 19th century. by his Byronic hero, it
appears at first in his autobiographical writings, and many authors takes this
hero in their works we cite some of them,Lord Byron was the model for the
title character of
Glenarvon
(1816) by Byron's erstwhile lover
Lady Caroline
Lamb; and for
Lord
Ruthven in
The
Vampyre (1819) by Byron's personal physician,
Polidori.
Claude Frollo
from
Victor Hugo's
The
Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831), Edmond Dantes from
Alexandre Dumas'
The
Count of Monte Cristo(1844),
Heath
Clifffrom
Emily Brontë's
Wuthering
Heights (1847), and Rochester from
Charlotte
Brontë's
Jane Eyre
(1847) are other later 19th-century examples of Byronic heroes.
" Byron's influence on European poetry, music, novel,
opera, and painting has been immense»
The Byronic hero is also featured in many contemporary novels,
and it is clear that Byron's work continues to influence
modern
literature as the precursor of a commonly encountered type of
antihero. Erik, the
Phantom from
Gaston Leroux's
Phantom of
the Opera (1909-1910) is another well-known example from the early
twentieth century.
Don Juan had known a real critical reception, in a time when
sexual debate was taboo, Byron dares and speaks about rational morality and
criticizes hypocritical society and suggests a love which is unorthodox, that
causes this harsh reception. Byron opened a failure that contributed after to a
debate, and a new discourse about women liberty and equality of sexes,in
denouncing women oppression by his society. His perception of love was honest
but after the debates that he created and influenced other authors that wrote
about the question»women oppression», but unfortunately the women
oppression still decades after Byron,and this idea of the alienated women and
oppression of the husband engendered a distaste between men-women.
We can say that Byron was a pioneer of women defender; he
described a sexual repression in the Victorian Era, and talks about
unconventional love, which was inadequate at that time, but perpetrated in our
days, a wave of women claiming started at the beginning of the 19th.
We can say that Byron's suggestion in Don Juan legitimates our today's
world, we can see more liberated women, controlling their sexuality,sex before
marriage,even still unconventional but tolerable in the name of women liberty
and individual rights. So,Byron does not directly influence women's freedom,
but contributes in denouncing women oppression,speaks the language of
liberation, self-fulfillment,options, and the removal of barriers and calls for
more release of women freedom ,it is similar of nowadays feminist claims.
Was Byron a feminist? We can say yes,even if the movement
appeared century later, but in creating a failure and lunching the discourse,
the poet is seen as a pioneer of women liberty and unconventional love.Besides,
as a traditional romantic, Byron opened a way for new ideas, new concept of
love, which is rational according to him. All walls that can separate this
accomplishment must be faced, a love in which men and women can be happy and
shred a mutual satisfaction and passion.
Conclusion
In England at the romantic era, women had to struggle in a
world that goes quick, in unbridled rhythm and a moral that not follows. Byron
was a supporter of the first option, for him, the alternative to make an end to
women oppression was to support libertinism, unhappy marriage, violated women,
repressed sexuality should have end. Social ethic and the prohibitions by
religion are in Byron's point of view onlt a intolerable brake for women's
blossoming*, sustained by hypocrisy of husbands, patriarchal hold, or religious
precept. Women, according to the poet,should aspirate more autonomy; he
approves women independance and admires their bravery. That is the way that
Byron sees ideal freedom. However, in arguing his position,an advocacy takes
place automatically. In contradiction with this thesis that he strongly defends
because libertinism, is confined for the bourgeoisie class,also libertinism is
not instinctive because it left out in several levels the procreation
principle. Therefore, it does not enter a natural processes,it is also
irrational forasmuch it depends on drives and desires.Byron himself supports
his own personal satisfaction, in witch his egoism is his figurehead, when to
women oppression by men. It is a myth, the only parity that does really exist
is the poor-rich parity and the idea of the alienated women is a lure*,to hide
the authentic injustice. The emancipation in accordance with the poet is to get
rid of the received ideas and to stop being submissive,while in escaping a
submission requires imperatively to be submissive to another one.
The most rational, is to be submissive to nature
require(procreation, motherhood, loyalty toward conjoint, affective
exchange...)while the modernity suggests the submission of women to own carnal
desires, to a primary hedonism, to a blinded ambition, and to an illusory
social status. Byron encourages such practices that remand you to a beast stage
under the banner of the revival and civilization. In short,at the time where
women acquired their rights and liberty, societies had never been so
disastrous. What we want to say is not that women are the origin misfortune in
society, but the fact that they fight for their rights, that are often
legitimate Have nothing to improve their situations nor the society in which
they live.
If we can give examples of our days; women were never so
humiliated as now days, violated. We want to say that Byron's suggestion of
free love, legitimates our current relationships, sex before marriage, temporal
relationships that certainly do not play in women's side, more than that, it
destroys their identity and honor. In the name of freedom and women liberty, in
taking a struggle for their autonomy, women become more submissive than ever.
What was intolerable at Byron's times, is the way to follow to enter the modern
era, women nowadays are more sexual objects than they were in the past. That
means that in trying to become free, they become object. In advocating the same
right and values of men, women are less and less feminine in men's eyes, this
example demonstrates the proof that what Byron's suggestion does not help
women, but in contrary, it destroys them When we want to cure an ill we must
make sure that the antidote is not more harmful as the illness itself.
As a conclusion, we can say that Byron's concept of love
is a liberated love in which no morals and ethics have their place. Byron shows
in his work that love wich transgresses all the difficulties is the pure one, a
love which sexuality have an important role not as old romantics. Byron insists
on the physical aspect of love, the poet suggests that we must follow our
hearts without paying attention to other prejudices. It is the only way to be
happy, even if it was a selfish attitude, Byron dares to talk about a
prohibited subject, he opened a gate for a new vision to see the world, he have
questioned people's mind for a moral transcendence, he was one of the
precursors to defend women sexuality and equality of sexes. Lord Byron became
the spokesman of a specific category of women, who assumed their eroticism in
reading his work, Don Juan is a timeless work, while the mystery of sexual
feminine do not intrigue the authors and poets as Byron before, or others
after, because men will always be fascinated by women.
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