Set Love Free: Female Sexuality as Subversive Agency in Lord Byron’s Don Juan

Preface  

 

Introduction

General Introduction 

Women and Erotic Love 

Critical Review 

 

Female Erotics

Introduction 

Female Sexuality and Sexual Pleasure 

The Reversal of Gender Role 

 

Female Identity

Introduction 

Stranger, Speed and Space 

Women-Juan Relationships: Chora and Abject 

The Recognition of Female Identity 

 

Conclusion

Works Cited

Acknowledgement

 

　　Byron says that “Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart,’Tis woman’s whole existence.” It is clear that Byron’s love affairs occupied most of his life; moreover, such a personal history of love inspired him to create a variety of works in which women played a crucial role. Byron’s Don Juan not only shows colorful romances but also reveals women’s desires and sexuality in a positive way. This book is a representation of how women become more individualized and sophisticated through their active pursuit of love in Don Juan. Meanwhile, the inherent tensions of the satiric tones are the narrator’s rhetorical means of compelling readers to see reality from different perspectives. Within a larger framework of satire, the issue of female sexuality and the concept of love are easily assumed a darker color. In fact, Byron’s usage of a comic tone does not satirize women; instead, he describes how wonderful love is in the world through images of women in love and the emotions that are the original desires of human beings. Love is spiritual enrichment of one’s daily life and a kind of symbol of energy and happiness. In addition, the author presents women’s gradual getting rid of social constraints and developing their confidence.Their experiences of love offer unlimited possibilities for shaping their own identities and result in a kind of spiritual transcendence from which the new thinking and meanings of life are generated. 

 

　　What Byron would like to show in Don Juan is the exploration of human feelings, especially human passions and the nature of love. In the context of Byron’s arguments against despotism, he thinks that one’s sexuality and desire about love must be free. Traditionally, women’s connection with love is conservative and supposed to be passive. Women become a target for men to choose as part of their lives. However, Byron transforms such a fixed stereotype and depicts female’s active performance in the quest for love. Using satire, Byron presents more accurate concepts of love, human beings, and true freedom. Implicit in the poem is that the nature of love is a kind of desire which exists in everyone’s heart. Based on Byron’s devotion to liberty, female sexuality is worth admiring and should not be regulated by external limits from society, politics, and morality. Under such a revolutionary intention, the spirit of “carpe diem” is also revised and given a new meaning: it shows not only the hedonic aspect of life but also the extreme effort to change one’s condition. There is no hierarchy in the world of love; women also can dominate men for the sake of true love and happiness they want. Time and physical beauty are fleeting, so just makethe most present pleasure and fulfillment count. Thus, Byron’s revolutionary and rebellious spirits are obvious here: he adopts ironic tone to criticize orthodox ideas. He portrays an ideal equality between men and women. 

 

　　This book is divided into four chapters. And I put my own romantic poems in each chapter foreword, showing a proper fusion of lovely thinking. Byron tries to tell readers that seizing the time to love is very important. Especially as a woman, she should bravely chase her happiness regardless of gender, class, race, and other oppressive elements because love is a kind of strong feeling which happens in a sudden moment without reasons or explanations. At last, Byron’s attitude toward love echoes the typical thinking of Romanticism—“Sentimental emotion is over everything”—an extreme value of love whose strength can save both men and women. Therefore, true freedom and fulfillment for women do contribute to equality between men and women.