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Thieves, Boxers, Sodomites, Poets: Being Flash to Byron's Don Juan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Gary Dyer
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Abstract

“Flash,” the slang of the criminal and boxing subcultures, illuminates Byron's Don Juan more than critics have recognized. This slang was devised to hide meanings from most listeners, and the flash language in the scene in which robbers attack Juan exemplifies discursive encryption in general. Such encryption is not always evidence that the speakers need to conceal their meaning, but it reminds us that in Byron's Britain many groups of people needed to communicate in secret, most often because of illegal activity, including illegal sexuality. The poet's most dangerous secret was sodomy, a capital crime, and the form of flash he had needed most was the coded language on which sodomites had to rely. The robbery scene bestows darker connotations on the polyglossia that runs throughout Don Juan: such diversity can reflect not just emancipation but also constraint.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 116 , Issue 3 , May 2001 , pp. 562 - 578
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2001

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