ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -For his tone poem, Strauss drew upon a version of the Don Juan story by the Austrian poet Nikolaus Lenau, published posthumously in 1851. As the work opens, Strauss offers a theme that is forceful and energetic with bold interjections from the brass section.

Detailed explanation-2: -There is a satire with explicit irony on Juan’s education governed by his mother – as his father died earlier. He is taught at home by special tutors with selected and expurgated texts directed and censored by his mother, so that he becomes “strictly moral”; and sexuality keeps out of his reach and knowledge.

Detailed explanation-3: -Fuess defines Don Juan as a satire and his concern in his study is to prove that the poem is not an epic and he does this by maintaining that: it lacks the sustained positive purpose of an epic; it develops no great epic action; it presents no true epic hero; and it expresses no positive phlosophicai view-point.

Detailed explanation-4: -Dedication to Robert Southey Lord Byron dedicated Don Juan (1819–1824) to Robert Southey, his artistic rival and the Poet Laureate of Britain (1813–1843).