Hello georgemiron,
This is a fascinating question, and I regret that current time
pressures don't let me attempt an answer. I couldn't resist adding a
few comments which touch on the edges of the topic!
Kierkegaard seems to be saying that by giving Don Juan a childhood and
history, Byron destroys the archetypal power of this character as
represented in Mozart's opera. I can probably go along with that to
some extent. Archetypal characters are unidimensional. They have to
be, because each one represents one aspect of the personality. An
archetype is driven to act by the energy it represents, and is not
able to reflect on the consequences, because reflection involves a
dialogue between different parts of the personality. Therefore, to
present a reflective, multidimensional character is to move away from
the archetypal. But then Kierkegaard said "we can acheive an ideality
corresponding to the musical one only by transferring the matter to
the psychological domain" According to one commentary I found, that
is exactly what Byron is attempting in this poem (or at least one of
the things he attempts), namely, to use it as a vehicle to work
through his own psychological problems -
http://www.colostate.edu/Orgs/NieveRoja/issue5/byron.htm ("Byron's
Biography: Don Juan and Byron's Existential Angst" by Scott C.
Holstad) However, Byron has other items on his agenda. Byron calls the
poem a "manifesto" and he uses satire to comment on and attack the
society of his day. It is also used as a protest against literary
pretension and as an attempt to defend traditional poetic form against
the innovations which Byron hated. So maybe that is one reason why
Byron's Don Juan could be said to have failed; it is trying to do too
many things at the same time.
However, is it correct at all to compare Byron's work with that of
Mozart? Ostensibly, they are based on the same story, but Byron
changes it so much that it is hardly recognisable. "On the other hand,
we find that the most radical departure comes at the hands of Lord
Byron in his anomalous, highly comic, epic poem Don Juan. This hero
bears only the slightest resemblance to Tirso's original. This Don
Juan loves but one woman at a time, and he never voluntarily leaves
his lover. War, shipwreck, acts of God tear him from her side, and he
pines for each loss - for a while, anyway. At the poem's end, instead
of confronting a stone horror, Juan is visited by a ghostly friar.
Juan, though trembling, stretches out his hand and finds "a firm but
glowing bust/which beat as if there were a warm heart under." It is,
in fact, the slyly smiling Lady Grace Fitz-Fulke. A far cry from the
stone commander." http://other9.tripod.com/scr/dj.html (The History of
Don Juan). Byron's Don Juan is therefore a lover, albeit a comic one,
in the real sense of the word, whereas the original character is not
actually interested in the women he meets, beyond seeing them as a
challenge and an opportunity to boost his own ego and pleasure: "This
is the original Don Juan: elemental and intense, open only to his own
pleasure, utterly indifferent to the consequences of his actions,
possessed by the same false sense of invulnerability that children
enjoy. He has no real interest in any external thing. In a word, he is
a narcissist. It's no surprise that the best and most compelling
portraits of Don Juan are works for theatre; Juan is a man of action.
His inner life is almost nonexistent." (The History of Don Juan, as
above).
I found an interesting piece on Kierkegaard in "Bjorn's Guide to
Philosophy : SOREN KIERKEGAARD - Life and Work"
http://www.knuten.liu.se/~bjoch509/philosophers/intros/kie-intro.html
In it, he says during Kierkegaard's dark night of the soul, he turned
to debauchery, and "It is possible that Mozart's Don Juan had such a
powerfully obsessive erotic effect upon him that once "in an exalted
state he allowed himself to be reduced to visiting a prostitute""
Was Kierkegaard experience of the passionate archetype communicated to
him by the power of Mozart's music giving him the message that Mozart
wanted to communicate? Another commentary on the opera suggests
otherwise, and links it more with the original story of Don Juan: "But
sexuality isn't the main issue of Don Giovanni. If we look at the way
Mozart unfolds his character, we see him for what he is: a ruthless
and cynical nobleman whose real addiction is power. This is all part
of the fascination of the man: he knows how to cast a spell. Only
afterwards do the women in the opera feel abused, wronged, betrayed,
recognise that hatred, the need to dominate, is what drives this and
every serial seducer. But we humans are complex beings. The Don is
complex, and so are his women. One of them sings of how she both wants
and doesn't want to succumb; she loves and hates at the same time:
she's appalled at what he wants of her, but fascinated too. There's a
marvellous psychological accuracy in that. But it reinforces the basic
point. Leporello calls his master's women 'sweethearts'. But he knows,
and they know, and we all know, that it's a euphemism. They are
victims." http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/shefcath/archives/dongio.htm
Sermon by the Dean of the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint
Paul. Sheffield It's interesting to see the allusion to a
multidimensional personality, which would also move Mozart's Don
Giovanni away from the archetypal, and open it to the same criticism
that Kierkegaard makes of Byron's version.
A third commentary "Don Giovanni: Subtle Social Commentary" at
http://lightning.prohosting.com/~shicoff/Operas/donjuan.html suggests
that Mozart really intended his opera to work as a criticism of
society, which if true would again increase the similarities with
Byron. "Don Giovanni can be viewed as a clear call for change in a
society fraught with problems... The intervention by the supernatural
undercuts the seriousness of the message but it also allows the
audience to feel a satisfying sense of conclusion. Wrongs have not
been righted but they have been exposed and the perpetrator is no
longer able to carry on and may even be suffering for his sins." I
find this highly simplistic. Don Giovanni is, at the end, offered the
chance of redemption by the statue. He refuses this and firmly taking
the statue by the hand, allows himself to be dragged down into hell.
To someone with an esoteric outlook, as Mozart is said to have had,
the act of taking full responsibilities for one's actions is one of
the marks of the initiate. Therefore, the ending could be taken to
mean that in his last moments Don Giovanni finally battles out of his
narcissism, and opens himself to his full potential. Hell might then
not be so much a punishment as a purification to be undergone before
the next incarnation. Once again, though, this moves us away from the
archetypal and into the human.
I hope I haven't tired you with all this, even though I have strayed
somewhat from the original question! BTW, the last URL has lots of
links to other Don Juan-related sites. |
