SOURCE: Boyd, Elizabeth French. “The Literary Background of Don Juan: Incidents.” In Byron's Don Juan: A Critical Study, pp. 112-38. New York: The Humanities Press, 1958.

In the following essay, originally published in 1945, Boyd examines several figures and events that may have inspired various characters and scenes in Don Juan.

Don Juan is a compound of self-expression and literary reminiscence. We have seen that Byron wrote fundamentally from his own feelings and ideas, and that when he read, he was likewise habitually conscious of himself and his world at the center of the book. He identified himself with characters, and visualized scenes, making them his own. He associated scenes and ideas from one book to another, and from books to his own life. The details that appealed to him were those that corroborated his own experience and tastes. In all Byron's poetry, therefore, purely autobiographical elements are blended with...