English Literature / Unit 13 ENL 1205 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Don Juan and Ottava Rima
Captions available
The idea
Don Juan, written from eighteen nineteen until Byron's death and left unfinished, is a satirical epic in ottava rima, an eight-line stanza rhyming ABABABCC. Byron's Juan is not a seducer but a young man easily seduced, and the narrator's digressions mock the society and public figures of his day.
In practice
Ottava rima; a comic, digressive narrator.
Where people slip
The final couplet often punctures the stanza.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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