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Comment on your favorite work of the English literature with suitable theory.My favorite work of the English literature is Don Juan written by Byron.It was written in Italy during the years 1818—1823.It is 16,000lines long, in 16 cantos, and written in ottava rima, each stanza containing 8 iambic pentameter lines rhymed abababcc.The story of the poem takes place in the latter part of the 18th century.Don Juan ,its hero, is a Spanish youth of noble birth.The viciitudes of his life and his adventures in many countries are described against varied social backgrounds, and he is seen to take part in different historical events, thus giving a broad panorama of contemporary life.Don Juan is Byron’s masterpiece, written in the prime of his creative power.His aim in writing it was “to remove the cloak which the manners and maxims of high society throw over their sins, and show them to the world as they really are.” He called this poem an “epic satire,” “a satire on abuses of the present state of society.” “Almost all Don Juan,” he wrote, “is real life, either my own, or from people I know.” Byron’s satire on the English society in the later part of the poem can be compared with Pope’s;and his satire is much le personal than that of Pope’s, for Byron is here attacking not a personal enemy but the whole hypocritical society.In Don Juan Byron displayed his genius as a romanticist and realist simultaneously.The author of this masterpiece —George Gordon Byron, was born in an impoverished noble family in London in 1788, a year before the French Revolution.His father was captain nicknamed “Mad Jack,” who had squandered away the money of the poet’s mother and then deserted her.For some years mother and son lived in loneline and poverty in Scotland.His mother, a paionate woman, petted and abused him alternately.Byron was born with a clubfoot, and in the frequent family scenes his mother called him “you lame brat.” So the poet’s early years had been far from happy.At ten, the boy was made Lord Byron by the death of a granduncle.Then he studied at Harrow and Cambridge.While a student, Byron published his first collection of poems, entitled Hours of Idlene, dealing with childish recollections and early friendship, and showing the influence of 18th century traditions.The poems were cruelly attacked by a certain critic in the journal Edinburgh Review.Two years later, in response to the critic, Byron published a satire, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, in which the Edinburgh Review and its supporters were taken to task.In fact, all literary celebrities of the day, Wordsworth, Southey and all, “ran the gauntlet” one after another in the poem.The satire caused great shock in the upper claes.It was compared to the roar of a young lion.As a leading Romanticist, Byron’s chief contribution is his creation of the “Byronic hero,” a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin.Such a hero appears first in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and then further developed in later works such as the Giaour, The Birde of Abydos, The siege of Corinth, Manfred, and Dan Juan in different guises.The defeat of the Carbonari uprising was a heavy blow to Byron.He resolved to devote his life to open fight against reaction.In 1823 he went to Greece and plunged into the struggle for the national independence of that country.He commanded 500 warriors and selected the most dangerous post for himself.After several mouths’ hard work under bad weather, Byron fell ill.His fever grew serous.On April 19, 1824, Byron died, shouting in delirium: “Forward!Forward!Follow me!” Byron’s death was deeply mourned by the Greek people and by all progreive people throughout the world.As a poet, Byron has enriched European poetry with an abundance of ideas, images, artistic forms and innovations.At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries romanticism appeared in England as a new trend in literature.It rose and grew under the impetus of the Industrial Revolution and French Revolution.Generally speaking, the romanticists expreed the ideology and sentiment of those claes and social strata who were discontent with, and opposed to, the development of capitalism.But owing to difference in social and political attitude, they split into two schools.There were the elder generation of romanticists, sometimes called escapist romanticists, including Wordsworth(Lyrical Ballads), Coleridge(The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)and Southey.And the younger generation of romanticists, sometimes called active romanticists represented by Byron(Don Juan), Shelley(Ode to the West Wind)and Keats(Lamia).Romantic prose of the time was represented by Lamb(Eays of Elia),Hazlitt, De Quincey and Hunt, and Walter Scott(Ivanhoe)was the only great novelist in this period.The Romantics demonstrated a strong reaction against the dominant modes of thinking of the 18th-century writers and philosophers.Where their predeceors saw man as a social animal, the Romantics saw him eentially as an individual in the solitary state.Thus, we can say that Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit.The Romantics not only extol the faculty of imagination, but also elevate the concepts of spontaneity and inspiration, regarding them as something crucial for true poetry.To the Romantics, poetry should be free from all rules.They would turn to the humble people and the common everyday life for subjects.Wordsworth defines the poet as a “man speaking to men,” and poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which originates in emotion recollected in tranquility.The Romantic Period was one of poetical revival and the romanticists believed that poetry could purify both individual souls and the society.