Rhyming Minervas Owl with Simon Cowell, 15 poets have fun hauling Byrons hero into the modern age
Lord Byrons original poem stops abruptly in its 17th canto, after enough words to fill a fat novel, before his death in 1824. A couple of years ago, I read a modern continuation, and it worked very well: you could see how Byrons structure, the beat of his rhymes and rhythms, obliged the modern poet to think like him, become possessed by him. Because the Byron of Don Juan is so likable, as is the Don Juan of Don Juan, this isnt a bad thing.
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