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Byron And 'The Barbarous . . . Middle Age Of Man': Youth, Aging, And Midlife In Don Juan, Melanie J. Parker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For Byron, the knowledge that he would one day have to become old was always on his mind. By the time Byron had relocated to the Continent, the idea had become something of an obsession. Thirty had always been Byron's turning point, the age at which youth would have to end and he would have to become an old man. Upon finally reaching that age, Byron found himself in a place much like Dante's selva oscura--dark, confusing, fearful, but with no other way left to go. There are allusions to this opening scene throughout Don Juan. It is …