The Dyers Hand and Other Essays

Most of the literary works with which we are acquainted fall into one of two classes, those we have no desire to read a second time—sometimes, we were never able to finish them— and those we are always happy to reread. There are a few, however, which belong to a third class; we do not feel like reading one of them very often but, when we are in the appropriate mood, it is the only work we feel like reading. Nothing else, however good or great, will do instead.

For me, Byron's Don Juan is such a work. In trying to an­alyze why this should be so, I find helpful a distinction which, so far as I have been able to discover, can only be made in the English language, the distinction between saying, "So- and-so or such-and-such is boring," and saying, "So-and-so or such-and-such is a bore."

In English, I believe, the adjective expresses a subjective judgment; boring always means boring-to-me.

For example, if I am in the company of golf enthusiasts, I find their con­versation boring but they find it fascinating. The noun, on the other hand, claims to be an objective, universally valid statement; X is a bore is either true or false.

Applied to works of art or to artists, the distinction makes four judgments possible.

1) Not Cor seldom) boring but a bore. Exam-pies: The last quartets of Beethoven, the Sistine frescoes of Michelangelo, the novels of Dostoievski. 2.) Sometimes boring but not a bore. Verdi, Degas, Shakespeare.

Not boring and not a bore. Rossini, the drawings of Thurber, P. G. Wodehouse.

Boring and a bore. Works to which one cannot attend. It would be rude to give names.

Perhaps the principle of the distinction can be made clearer by the following definitions:

The absolutely boring but absolutely not a bore: the time of day.

The absolutely not boring but absolute bore: God.

Don Juan is sometimes boring but pre-eminently an example of a long poem which is not a bore. To enjoy it fully, the reader must be in a mood of distaste for everything which is to any degree a bore, that is, for all forms of passionate attachment, whether to persons, things, actions or beliefs.

This is not a mood in which one can enjoy satire, for satire, however entertaining, has its origin in passion, in anger at what is the case, desire to change what is the case into what ought to be the case, and belief that the change is humanly possible. The Dunciad, for example, presupposes that the God­dess of Dullness is a serious enemy of civilization, that it is the duty of all good citizens to rally to the defense of the

City against her servants, and that the cause of Common- sense is not hopeless.

In defending his poem against the charge of immorality, Byron said on one occasion: "Don Juan will be known bye- a-bye for what it is intended—a Satire on abuses of the present state of Society": but he was not telling the truth. The poem, of course, contains satirical passages. When Byron attacks Wordsworth, Southey or Wellington, he is certainly hoping to deprive them of readers and admirers and behind his description of the siege of Ismail lies a hope that love of military glory and adulation of the warrior are not incurable defects in human nature but evils against which the con­science of mankind can, in the long run, be persuaded to revolt.

But, as a whole, Don Jvum is not a satire but a comedy, and Byron knew it, for in a franker mood he wrote to Murray:

I have no plan—I had no plan; but I had or have mate­rials; though if, like Tony Lumpkin, I am to be "snubbed so when I am in spirits," the poem will be naught and the poet turn serious again . . . You are too earnest and eager about a work which was never intended to be serious. Do you suppose that I could have any intention but to giggle and make giggle.

Satire and comedy both make use of the comic contradiction, but their aims are different. Satire would arouse in readers the desire to act so that the contradictions disappear; comedy would persuade them to accept the contradictions with good humor as facts of life against which it is useless to rebel.

Poor Julia's heart was in an awkward state,

She felt it going and resolved to make The noblest efforts for herself and mate,

For honour's, pride's, religion's, virtue's sake; Her resolutions were most truly great;

And almost might have made a Tarquin quake; She prayed the Virgin Mary for her grace As being the best judge in a lady's case.

She vow'd she never would see Juan more

And next day paid a visit to his mother; And looked extremely at the opening door,

Which by the Virgin's grace, let in another; Grateful she was, and yet a little sore—

Again it opens—it can be no other. "Tis surely Juan now—No! I'm afraid That night the Virgin was no longer prayed.