Don Juan: Our Contemporary (ENGL40018)
HonoursPoints: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)
Overview
| Availability | Semester 1 |
|---|---|
| Fees | Look up fees |
In 1881, the Victorian arbiter of culture and anarchy, Matthew Arnold, declared that Lord Byron’s “hour of irresistible vogue has passed away.” This subject explores how, on the contrary, the enduring hour of Byron’s Don Juan is—still—irresistibly now. A serial text, first published in 1819-1824, Don Juan appeared in a Romantic moment that invented contemporaneity as an historical category, and its vitality lives on in our contemporary moment. Working through the poem’s 17 cantos, the subject offers students an immersive experience of Byron’s mixed-genre masterpiece—the ur-text and primal event of modern literary scandal and experimentation. With much of the experimentation we think of as now, Don Juan was already there: generic hybridity; “truth in masquerade;” spectacularly unreliable narrators; the public intimacies of celebrity culture and its secular recasting of divinity; abyssal reflexivity; surface reading; paranoid reading; superheroic Satanism; queer vicariousness and its play of identifications; preposterous liberalisms; and the performative refusal to observe appropriate boundaries between life and text.
We engage Don Juan not only in context but as context for understanding the emergence of global modernity in the wake of Napoleonic Europe; the revolutionary politics of the Italian Carbonari; libertine sexuality and romantic love; colonial transportation and the criminal subcultures of the “flash.” We examine how Don Juan travels backwards and forwards, from then to now, tracking its Romantic reworking of the Enlightenment rediscovery of classical Epicureanism, Virgil and Homer and Dante’s Inferno; the world-literary intertexts of Tirso de Molina, Calderón, Góngora and Molière, and Mozart’s Don Giovanni; and its endurance in Victorian Gothic heroes, Baudelaire and Belle Epoque Decadence, Oscar Wilde, Dolly Wilde, Jane DeLynn’s Don Juan in the Village and Dorothy Porter; to popular-cultural avatars such as David Bowie, Patti Smith, Morrissey and Marvel superhero Tony Starke/Ironman.
Intended learning outcomes
Students who successfully complete this subject should be able to have:
- An appreciation of the relations between Romantic-period literature and contemporary culture
- A first-hand acquaintance with a key text of world literature and literary modernity and its changing contexts of production and reception
- A critical and conceptual understanding of the historical agency of literary texts
- A familiarity with a range of literary-critical, cultural-historical and theoretical approaches to literary Romanticism
- An understanding of vital developments in Byron criticism over the past two centuries.
Generic skills
Students who successfully complete this subject should be able to:
- Research through competent use of library, and other (including online) information sources. through the successful definition of areas of inquiry and methods of research
- Critically think and analyse through use of recommended reading, essay writing and tutorial discussion; through the questioning of accepted wisdom and the ability to shape and strengthen persuasive judgments and arguments; through attention to detail in reading material; and through openness to new ideas and the development of critical self-awareness
- Theoretically think through use of recommended reading, essay writing and tutorial discussion; through a productive engagement with relevant methodologies and paradigms in literary studies and the broader humanities
- Creatively think through essay writing and tutorial discussion; through the innovative conceptualising of problems and an appreciation of the role of creativity in critical analysis
- Have a social, ethical and cultural understanding through use of recommended reading, essay writing and tutorial discussion. through the social contextualisation of arguments and judgments; through adaptations of knowledge to new situations and openness to new ideas; through the development of critical self-awareness in relation to an understanding of other cultures and practices
- Demonstrate intelligent and effective communication of knowledge and ideas through essay preparation, planning and writing as well as tutorial discussion; through effective dissemination of ideas from recommended reading and other relevant information sources. through clear definition of areas of inquiry and methods of research; through confidence to express ideas in public forums
- Demonstrate time management and planning through the successful organization of workloads; through disciplined self-direction and the ability to meet deadlines.
Last updated: 4 March 2025
Eligibility and requirements
Prerequisites
None
Corequisites
None
Non-allowed subjects
None
Inherent requirements (core participation requirements)
The University of Melbourne is committed to providing students with reasonable adjustments to assessment and participation under the Disability Standards for Education (2005), and the Assessment and Results Policy (MPF1326). Students are expected to meet the core participation requirements for their course. These can be viewed under Entry and Participation Requirements for the course outlines in the Handbook.
Further details on how to seek academic adjustments can be found on the Student Equity and Disability Support website: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/student-equity/home
Last updated: 4 March 2025
Assessment
| Description | Timing | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
Written work option 1 (Please see below)
| Throughout the teaching period | 100% |
Written work option 2 (Please see below)
| During the examination period | 100% |
| Hurdle requirement: 1. Attendance hurdle requirement: This subject has a minimum requirement of 80% attendance at tutorials, seminars, or workshops. | Throughout the teaching period | N/A |
| Hurdle requirement: 2. Late Penalty and Assessment hurdle requirement: Assessment submitted late without an approved extension will be penalised at five per cent (5%) of the possible marks available for the assessment task per day or part thereof. All pieces of assessment must be submitted to pass the subject. Each submitted assessment must be complete, constitute a genuine attempt to address the requirements of the task and will not be accepted after 20 University business days from the original assessment due date without written approval. | Throughout the semester | N/A |
Additional details
WRITTEN WORK OPTION 1:
- A 1,000-word report (20%), due mid-semester AND
- A 4,000-word essay (80%), due in the examination period
OR
WRITTEN WORK OPTION 2:
- 5,000-word essay (100%) due in the examination period
Last updated: 4 March 2025
Dates & times
- Semester 1
Principal coordinator Clara Tuite Mode of delivery On Campus (Parkville) Contact hours Total 24 hours: a 2-hour seminar per week Total time commitment 170 hours Teaching period 3 March 2025 to 1 June 2025 Last self-enrol date 14 March 2025 Census date 31 March 2025 Last date to withdraw without fail 9 May 2025 Assessment period ends 27 June 2025 Semester 1 contact information
Time commitment details
170 hours
What do these dates mean
Visit this webpage to find out about these key dates, including how they impact on:
- Your tuition fees, academic transcript and statements.
- And for Commonwealth Supported students, your:
- Student Learning Entitlement. This applies to all students enrolled in a Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP).
Subjects withdrawn after the census date (including up to the ‘last day to withdraw without fail’) count toward the Student Learning Entitlement.
Last updated: 4 March 2025
Further information
- Texts
- Related Handbook entries
This subject contributes to the following:
Type Name Course Graduate Diploma in Arts (Advanced) Course Bachelor of Arts (Degree with Honours) - Links to additional information
- Available through the Community Access Program
About the Community Access Program (CAP)
This subject is available through the Community Access Program (also called Single Subject Studies) which allows you to enrol in single subjects offered by the University of Melbourne, without the commitment required to complete a whole degree.
Please note Single Subject Studies via Community Access Program is not available to student visa holders or applicants
Entry requirements including prerequisites may apply. Please refer to the CAP applications page for further information.
Additional information for this subject
Subject coordinator approval required
- Available to Study Abroad and/or Study Exchange Students
Last updated: 4 March 2025