Genre and Gender as Byronic Subversions in Don Juan

Genre and Gender as Byronic Subversions in Don Juan

Husika, Esma

Don Juan by Lord Byron is puzzling and engaging for a contemporary reader because of the subversiveness of its nature manifested in transgressions of both social and literary kind. It is classified as an epic, but it subverts every convention of the genre, retaining only the framework. The most prominent subversion of the genre is at the same time the subversion of gender. It is manifested in the choice, description and action of the main hero. Within the genre which normally serves as a mirror reflecting patriarchal society values and imposing clear-cut patterns for desired behavior in warrior societies, Byron presents us with an effeminate version of a notorious Spanish lover Don Juan, who gets to be chosen a hero of this unusual epic poem. This paper aims at exploring subversive nature of the aforementioned text and pointing out to the way gender is socially constructed and therefore changeable category, thus bringing it into connection with ideas of Judith Butler who questions the patriarchal discourse of power and claims that what has been sold to us as a difference of sex was actually gender all along.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2011-05

65