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Byron And Don Juan: A Case Study And Queer Reading Of The Closeted Libertine, Caitlin Stanfield

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the major theme of homosexuality throughout the poetry of Lord George Gordon Byron, ultimately focusing on his 1819 iteration of Don Juan. It presents historically relevant information regarding the sodomy laws, religious sermons, anti-sodomite publications, and other obstacles that, I argue, prevented Byron from expressing his sexuality openly. The queer Byron, of course, exists elsewhere. Through close readings of Byron’s correspondence and of his verse, my thesis argues that we can read Byron’s highly coded, homoerotic jargon for what it is, shedding new light on the active but concealed homosexual community of nineteenth-century England.