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Don Juan: Canto I & Vby Byron, George Gordon, Lord (1788-1824)Listen and be inspired by the tales of Don Juan.Don Juan is a long narrative poem by Byron, based very loosely on the legend of the evil seducer, Don Juan. The first and second of (eventually) seventeen Cantos composed during Byron’s self-imposed exile from England appeared, anonymously, in July 1819 and were greeted with scandal, condemnation, admiration and hilarity. Modern critics generally consider the self-proclamed ‘epic’, which remained incomplete at Byron’s death, to be his masterpiece.Juan, captured by Turkish pirates and sold into slavery is bought by a beautiful Princess as her toy-boy. Dressed as an odalisque, he is smuggled into the Sultan’s harem for a steamy assignation. Unbelievably, Byron’s publisher almost baulked at this feast of allusive irony, blasphemy (mild), calumny, scorn, lesse-majeste, cross-dressing, bestiality, assassination, circumcision and dwarf-tossing. This was the last Canto published by the stuffy John Murray (who had, however, made a tidy fortune on the earlier parts of the Epic). Although Byron’s mood starts, after this, to grow darker and his bitterness at English hypocrisy to grow sharper, his discursive comedy and precise and intriguing rhyme is rarely better than in Canto V.Canto I, total running time: 1:24:12Canto V, total running time: 1:15:48Free download here: Canto I & Canto V