This paper aims to survey in brief Byron and his characteristic features by scrutinizing “Don Juan,” his masterpiece which causes him to be more generally esteemed for the satirical realism. It is true that his name has become a symbol for the deepest romantic melancholy on the one hand and for the aspirations of political liberalism on the other. Byron himself lived a life of freedom, violence, dissipation as a great demonstrator of his own thoughts, while trying to show the European discontents and hopes of that time. In “Don Juan” especially he was concerned with the same disparity between the real and the ideal, but in the main he shows it in its comic, or at least sardonic, aspects. Finally, this paper suggests the possibility of linking Byron, who stands in contrast to Shelley, to W.B. Yeats. It seems that there are many parallels between the two poets. Like Byron, the later Yeats strongly despises the hypocritical aspects of politics, religion, and moral. Throughout his life, Yeats was deeply involved with mysticism, or Oriental philosophy. And also, though Byron and Yeats are different in composing poems - Byron rarely corrects what he has written down while Yeats hardly leaves what he wrote uncorrected, as Yeats was a kind of perfectionist poet - the poems, as final products, by both poets do not seem very different. Both of their poetry flow like water.

• 김석현(한양대) | Seok-hyun Kim