Don Juan

George Gordon ByronPeople's Literature Publishing House1985

Rating 4.5
Chapters
19

Tags

Literature Foreign LiteratureWorld Classics ByronRomantic PoetRomanticismSatirical EpicVerse NovelFin de SieclePetersburgBritish High SocietyBritish RomanticismAristocratic Youth

Summary

Don Juan is a long verse novel written between 1818 and 1823 by the English Romantic poet Lord Byron (1788–1824) and one of his most representative works; the poem was completed in sixteen cantos and fourteen stanzas, roughly sixteen thousand lines. Byron called it a satirical epic. He rewrote the long-circulated European legend of Don Juan, reshaping the protagonist—portrayed by generations of dramatists as a libertine—into a kind and brave young Spanish nobleman of fundamentally sincere nature. The poem follows Don Juan's travels: driven to leave Spain by a marital scandal, he encounters a storm and shipwreck, drifts alone to a Greek island, and is rescued by the pure and passionate maiden Haidée, with whom he falls deeply in love; this romance is forcibly broken off by Haidée's father, the pirate Lambro, and Don Juan is sold as a slave into the harem of the Turkish Sultan; after escaping he joins the Russian army in the Russo-Turkish War, is sent to St. Petersburg to report the victory on account of his military merit, and becomes the empress's favorite; he is then sent as an envoy to England, enters English high society, and is drawn into a series of new adventures. Throughout the hero's adventures the poem continually inserts commentary and lyric passages, using sharp satire to depict European aristocratic social life, war, court life, and colonial life from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century, unfolding a broad and colorful social panorama. Before the work was finished, Byron died young while taking part in the Greek War of Independence. Goethe called Don Juan a work of supreme genius, and Cha Liangzheng's translation is widely recognized as the most widely circulated and influential Chinese version.

Editor's review

读《唐璜》，值得先读它的体量之外的东西：这是一部没有写完却已足够完整的杰作。拜伦在三十岁上下的年纪开始动笔，把一生见过的欧洲——西班牙的家庭、希腊的海岛、土耳其的后宫、俄国的宫廷、英国的乡间庄园——全部写进诗中，然后又用他那支无所顾忌的笔把这一切都嘲弄一遍。它既是冒险故事，又是社会讽刺，还是一部不断打断故事、与读者对话的“自白之书”，这种自由的结构在十九世纪诗歌中极为罕见。 中文读者能有查良铮的译本是一大幸事。查良铮（笔名穆旦）本人是“九叶诗派”的代表诗人，他以诗人译诗，讲究节奏与语气，把拜伦口语体的从容、俏皮和锋利留在汉语里，许多读过多版译文的读者仍认他的译文最耐读。人民文学出版社“外国文学名著丛书”版本是这部译本最经典的载体，豆瓣评分长期在 8.9 左右，几代读者经由它认识拜伦。若你只想读一部英国浪漫主义的代表作，或者想看看“讽刺”在诗歌里可以做到多高级，这本书是绕不过去的选择。

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Reading tips

  1. 建议先读献辞与第一章，感受拜伦的口语体和叙事节奏，再决定阅读速度
  2. 不必逐章强行推进，可把海黛一段、俄国宫廷与英国社交三部分作为重点品读
  3. 读时留意诗中那些突然跳出故事、直接同“读者”说话的段落，那是全书最见性情的地方
  4. 若读得吃力，可先找一部情节梗概对照，再回头欣赏诗句与讽刺的分寸

About the publisher

People's Literature Publishing House China · Founded in 1951

People's Literature Publishing House publishes across classical literature, foreign literature, documentary writing and folk literature, with 492 titles in its catalogue. Representative books range from the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms to Lao She's Teahouse and Longxu Ditch in the Selected Works of Lao She, as well as translated foreign literature such as Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Dante's Divine Comedy and Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels, alongside documentary and fictional works including Primo Levi's If This Is a Man and João Guimarães Rosa's The Devil to Pay in the Backlands. Its authors include Chinese writers such as Lao She, translators such as Shen Emeri and Li Wenjun, and foreign authors such as James Wood. Overall, the house has a strong record in editing classic works and translating foreign literature, with a publishing character that bridges Chinese and foreign writing and values textual quality.

Contents

  1. Dedication
  2. Canto One
  3. Canto Two
  4. Canto Three
  5. Canto Four
  6. Canto Five
  7. Preface to Cantos Six, Seven, and Eight
  8. Canto Six
  9. Canto Seven
  10. Canto Eight
  11. Canto Nine
  12. Canto Ten
  13. Canto Eleven
  14. Canto Twelve
  15. Canto Thirteen
  16. Canto Fourteen
  17. Canto Fifteen
  18. Canto Sixteen
  19. Canto Seventeen

FAQ

《唐璜》是小说还是诗？ 它是诗体小说，即用诗写成的叙事长篇。拜伦自称是一部“讽刺史诗”，全诗十六个章节，共约一万六千行，因此读起来是诗行，但推动阅读的却是连贯的故事。
唐璜是那个浪荡子传说吗？ 拜伦借用了传说中的名字，却做了反向改写：他把主人公写成善良、勇敢、真诚的青年，而把讽刺的矛头转向欧洲的贵族社会、宫廷、战争和道德虚饰。莫里哀与莫扎特笔下的浪荡公子，在这部诗里已经变成另一个人。
《唐璜》为什么没有写完？ 拜伦按计划要让唐璜继续游历德国、法国并参加法国大革命，但他在1824年参加希腊独立战争时病逝，年仅三十六岁，长诗就此中断在第十六章之后。
查良铮译本有什么特点？ 查良铮（笔名穆旦）本身是著名诗人，他以诗人身份译诗，注重节奏、语感和口语的自然，被许多读者视为中文世界最耐读的《唐璜》译本，人民文学出版社的版本流传最广。
没有诗歌阅读经验能读进去吗？ 可以。这部诗的故事性很强——海上遇险、岛上恋爱、后宫历险、战场立功、出使异国，读起来更像一部传奇小说；只需适应诗行分行的形式，并不要求读者有格律基础。

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About the author

George Gordon Byron Author

George Gordon Byron is one of the most influential poets in the history of English Romantic literature, known for his surging passion, sharp satire, and strikingly personal style. The long poem Don Juan is among his most important representative works, revealing a profound observation of European society and human nature through its broad social vision and flexible, varied narrative technique. His dramatic writing also deserves attention; his works included in Harvard Classics Volume 6: British Modern Drama show that, beyond poetry, he also engaged in dramatic literature. Because public information is limited, details of his life and specific experiences are not elaborated here. Overall, Byron's writing spans poetry and drama, with bold and powerful language and intense emotion, and has had a lasting influence on later European literature; his works remain important reading in the fields of foreign literature and world classics.