...private history. Nothing in Don Juan articulates this unmitigated bravura so directly. Byron's couplet And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque (IV, 3) appears specifically to disclaim it. Nevertheless Professor Ridenour's contention that the poem...

...more mellow, And other minds acknowledged my dominion: Now my sere Fancy "falls into the yellow Leaf," and Imagination droops her pinion, And the sad truth...my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque. And if I laugh at any mortal thing Tis that I may not weep; and if I weep Tis that our nature cannot...

...sad face and wondered if she had ever read Byron's Don Juan and, if so, had she paused at the line And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'tis that I may not weep. 18 On the way to the airport, Michael loosened his tie and was relieved to discover that the constriction...

...mellow, And other minds acknowledged my dominion: Now my sere fancy " falls into the yellow Leaf," I knew my fault, and feel my punishment Kot less because I suffer it unbent. That thon wert beautiful, "Г is that I may not weep ; and if I weep, 'Tie that onr nature cannot always bring Itself to apathy,...

...comment from canto 4 that often setves as a summary of Byron's themes and of his stance in Don Juan: And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque. (4.3) Another passage that merges truth with taste and poetry occurs in canto 8, where a Turk bites...

...later career. Don Juan relentlessly pokes fun at the Byronic style that exhausted itself in Manfred: "And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk / Turns what was once romantic to burlesque" (1v.3). Throughout, as McGann has argued in "Don Juan" in Context, Byron mocks his audience's desire...

...bosom of the North, So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth.' 1 Written in Italy. 3 'And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'Tis that I may not weep.' his 'death a victory.' When he heard the cry of nationality and liberty burst forth in the land he...

...is full of tears. The modern Pierrot is defined by the paradox that Lord Byron had already stated: "And if I laugh at any mortal thing, Tis that I may not weep." The state of world and society (Schonberg's "price of grain") is experienced as such that the sensitive...

...Barbier de Seville, act 1 , se. 2 (1 775). Byron expressed a similar idea in Don ¡uan cto. 4, st. 4: "And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'Tis that I may not weep." Nothing can confound A wise man more than laughter from a dunce. GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON, ÓTH BARON...

...laugh when we forget the seriousness of things, or as a means of so forgerting. Recall Byron's line, "If I laugh at any mortal thing, 'tis that I may not weep." The closest thing in our own cultural inventory to humor as defined by the Daoist seems to be the ironic...