earticle

영어

This study aims to illuminate the ‘aesthetic existence’ of byronic heroes in Don Juan. Juan and the Narrator represent an ‘aesthetic existence’, also an romantic ironist in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or. Don Juan presents Byron’s romantic-ironic vision of the universe as abundant chaos, i.e. becoming, change, and growth, in which the most appropriate human activities are creativity, love, mental flexibility or mobilité, and tolerance both for alternative opinions and for natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Byron’s romantic-ironic vision defies and mocks all completed structures, all finite enclosures. Don Juan’s existential heroes, Don Juan and the narrator, are roughly equivalent to an ‘aesthetic existence’ in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or that can never be satisfied with a merely actual object, and must constantly “change fields.” The narrator and Juan as well as ‘aesthete A’ who can know only boredom and dread, and must totally commit himself in order to escape from despair in a chaotic world, exemplify the prototype of an existentialist man. In conclusion, Byronic heroes hold existential traits defined by Kierkegaard. Don Juan manages to dramatize Byron’s philosophy of life through his heroes proving existential attitudes.