Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T12:49:02.289Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Gary Dyer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Andrewes, George. A Dictionary of the Slang and Cant Languages: Ancient and Modern. London: George Smeeton, 1809.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics. Ed. and trans. Emerson, Caryl. Introd. Booth, Wayne. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[Barber, John]. The Times: or, Views of Society. London: William Fearman, 1819.Google Scholar
Bee, Jon [Badcock, John]. Slang: A Dictionary of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, the Pit, of Bon-Ton, and the Varieties of Life, Forming the Completest and Most Authentic Lexicon Balatronicum Hitherto Offered to the Notice of the Sporting World. London: T. Hughes, 1823.Google Scholar
Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England, in Four Books. Vol. 4. Oxford: Clarendon. 1765-69. 4 vols.Google Scholar
Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England, in Four Books. Notes and additions by Edward Christian. 14th ed. Vol. 4. London: Cadell and Davies, 1803. 4 vols.Google Scholar
Borowitz, Albert. The Thurtell-Hunt Murder Case: Dark Mirror to Regency England. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1987.Google Scholar
Byron, George Gordon. Byron's Letters and Journals. Ed. Marchand, Leslie A. 13 vols. Cambridge: Harvard UP. 1973-94.Google Scholar
Byron, George Gordon. The Complete Miscellaneous Prose. Ed. Nicholson, Andrew. Oxford: Clarendon. 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byron, George Gordon. The Complete Poetical Works. Ed. McGann, Jerome J. 7 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1980-93.Google Scholar
Byron, George Gordon. Don Juan. Byron. Works 5: 3–662.Google Scholar
Byron, George Gordon. Hints from Horace. Byron. Works 1: 288–318.Google Scholar
A Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum. Ed. Stephens, Frederic G. and George, M. Dorothy. 11 vols. London: British Museum, 1870-1954.Google Scholar
Christensen, Jerome. Lord Byron's Strength: Romantic Writing and Commercial Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1993.Google Scholar
[Cliffe, Leigh]. Supreme Bon Ton: and Bon Ton by Profession. Vol. 1. London: John C. Spence, 1820. 3 vols.Google Scholar
Clubbe, John. “Byron's London.” Approaches to Teaching Byron's Poetry. Ed. Shilstone, Frederick W. New York: MLA, 1991. 152–57.Google Scholar
Crompton, Louis. Byron and Greek Love: Homophobia in Nineteenth-Century England. Berkeley: U of California P. 1985.Google Scholar
Donelan, Charles. Romanticism and Male Fantasy in Byron's Don Juan: A Marketable Vice. New York: St. Martin's, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dowling, Linda C. Hellenism and Homosexuality in Victorian Oxford. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994.Google Scholar
Egan, Pierce. Boxiana; or, Sketches of Modern Pugilism, from the Championship of Crib to the Present Time. London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1818.Google Scholar
Egan, Pierce Life in London: or, The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq. and His Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom, Accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in Their Rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis. London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1821.Google Scholar
Eisler, Benita. Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame. New York: Knopf, 1999.Google Scholar
Elfenbein, Andrew. Byron and the Victorians. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.Google Scholar
Elledge, Paul. “Never Say(ing) Goodbye: Mediated Valediction in Byron's Don Juan XI.” Byron Journal 20 (1992): 17–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elwin, Malcolm. Lord Byron's Family: Annabella, Ada, and Augusta, 1816-1824. Ed. Thomson, Peter. London: Murray, 1975.Google Scholar
“Flash.” Adj. 3, def. 3. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.Google Scholar
Ford, John. Prizefighting: The Age of Regency Boximania. Newton Abbot: David, 1971.Google Scholar
Graham, Peter W. Don Juan and Regency England. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1990.Google Scholar
Grose, Francis. A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. 1796. Ed. Partridge, Eric. 3rd ed. New York: Barnes, 1963.Google Scholar
[Grose, Francis]. Lexicon Balatronicum. A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence. Compiled Originally by Captain Grose. And Now Considerably Altered and Enlarged, with the Modern Changes and Improvements, by a Member of the Whip Club. London: C. Chappel, 1811.Google Scholar
Gross, George C. “Lord Byron and the Fancy.” Arete: The Journal of Sport Literature 2.2 (1985): 143–67.Google Scholar
Gross, Jonathan David. “‘One Half What I Should Say’: Byron's Gay Narrator in Don Juan.” European Romantic Review 9 (1998): 323–50.Google Scholar
Hazlitt, William. “The Fight.” The Complete Works of William Hazlitt. Ed. Howe, P. P. Vol. 17. London: Dent, 1933, 72-86, 21 vols. 1930–34.Google Scholar
Hobhouse, John Cam. Byron's Bulldog: The Letters of John Cam Hobhouse to Lord Byron. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1984.Google Scholar
Irving, Washington. “Buckthorne: or. The Young Man of Great Expectations.” Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller, The Alhambra. New York: Lib. of Amer., 1991. 499–542.Google Scholar
Keats, John. The Letters of John Keats. Ed. Rollins, Hyder Edward. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1958. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Lang, Cecil Y. “Narcissus Jilted: Byron, Don Juan, and the Biographical Imperative.” Historical Studies and Literary Criticism. Ed. McGann, Jerome J. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1985. 143–79.Google Scholar
A Late Resident [William Jerdan and Michael Nugent]. Six Weeks at Long's. Vol. 3. London, 1817. 3 vols.Google Scholar
Lucan, The Civil War. Books 1-9. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1957.Google Scholar
[Luttrell, Henry]. Advice to Julia: A Letter in Rhyme. London: John Murray. 1820.Google Scholar
Magriel, Paul. “Bibliography of Boxing: A Chronological Check List of Books in English Published before 1900.” Bulletin of the New York Public Library 52 (1948): 263–88.Google Scholar
Malcolmson, Robert W. Popular Recreations in English Society, 1700-1850. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1973.Google Scholar
Martin, Philip W. “Reading Don Juan with Bakhtin.” Don Juan. By Byron, George Gordon. Ed. Wood, Nigel. Buckingham: Open UP, 1993. 90–121.Google Scholar
Mazeppa Travestied: A Poem. With an Introductory Address to the Goddess of “Milling,” and Her Worshippers, “the Fancy.” London: C. Chapple, 1820.Google Scholar
McCalman, Iain. Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries, and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988.Google Scholar
McGann, Jerome J. “Byron and ‘the Truth in Masquerade.‘” Romantic Revisions. Ed. Brinkley, Robert and Hanley, Keith. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992. 191–209.Google Scholar
The Modern Flash Dictionary. London: G. Smeeton, [1821?].Google Scholar
Moore, Thomas. The Journal of Thomas Moore. Ed. Dowden, Wilfred S. Vol. 1. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1983. 6 vols.Google Scholar
Norton, Rictor. Mother Clap's Molly House: The Gay Subculture in England, 1700-1830. London: GMP, 1992.Google Scholar
One of the Fancy [Pierce Egan]. Boxiana: or, Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism; from the Days of the Renowned Broughton and Slack, to the Heroes of the Present Milling Æra! London: G. Smeeton, 1812.Google Scholar
One of the Fancy [Moore, Thomas]. Tom Crib's Memorial to Congress. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1819.Google Scholar
[Oxberry, William]. Pancratia; or, A History of Pugilism. London: W. Oxberry, 1812.Google Scholar
Petronius. Satyricon. Trans. Michael Heseltine. Rev. E. H. Warmington. Cambridge: Harvard UP. 1969.Google Scholar
Plautus. Persa. Trans. Paul Nixon. Cambridge: Harvard UP. 1963.Google Scholar
[Reynolds, John Hamilton]. The Fancy: A Selection from the Poetical Remains of the Late Peter Corcoran, of Gray's Inn, Student at Law. With a Brief Memoir of His Life. London: Taylor and Hessey, 1820.Google Scholar
Sales, Roger. “Pierce Egan and the Representation of London.” Reviewing Romanticism. Ed. Martin, Philip W. and Jarvis, Robin. London: Macmillan, 1992. 154–69.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley: U of California P. 1990.Google Scholar
Southey, Robert. Letters from England. Ed. Simmons, Jack. London: Cresset. 1951.Google Scholar
Trumbach, Randolph. Heterosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment London. Chicago: U of Chicago P. 1998. Vol. 1 of Sex and the Gender Revolution.Google Scholar
Vaux, James Hardy. Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux. Vol. 2. London: W. Clowes, 1819. 2 vols.Google Scholar
[Wilson, John]. “Boxiana, No VIII, the Sable School of Pugilism.” Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Oct. 1820: 60–67.Google Scholar
Winder, W. H. D. “The Development of Blackmail.” Modern Law Review 4(1941): 21–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar