Byron's Presentation And Representation Of 'mobility' In Don Juan

Byron's presentation and representation of 'mobility' in Don Juan

The word 'mobility' is used only once in Don Juan, to describe Lady Adeline Amundeville, who features in cantos XIII-XVI. 'Mobility' can be approached in terms of how it relates to and informs the character of Adeline, but also what it comes to mean for Byron himself. In his discussion of Byron's note on 'mobility', Jerome J McGann points out that the passage is 'famous', and that critical opinion acknowledges that Byron had an awareness both of his own 'mobility' and of the negative aspects of it. By analysing the definition of the term in Byron's note, and exploring how it applies to Adeline and to Byron, it is possible to understand its paradoxical relationships with the past and the appearance of the possessor's own happiness.

Because the word is only used once in Don Juan, discussion of 'mobility' relies on the poet's own definition. Byron notes that he is 'not sure that mobility is English', even though the word had been used in a number of different ways for centuries. Byron's interpretation of the French term 'mobilité' is in fact very similar to an English definition that had been in use since 1567. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, mobility had already been used to signify 'the ability or tendency to change easily or quickly; changeableness, instability; fickleness'. However, Byron's own definition differs from this in several subtle ways: (1) he sees 'mobility' as a 'susceptibility' and not an ability; (2) the very nature of 'mobility' is itself deceptive; (3) some connection with the past remains, despite the change; (4) his mobility relates specifically to 'emotional change'.

After she has known Juan for a long time, it seems sudden that Adeline Felt on the whole an interest intense- Partly perhaps because a fresh sensation, Or that he had an air of innocence, (Don Juan, XV.28)

This shows how Adeline has a 'susceptibility of immediate impressions', which is an expression of her 'mobility'. In this instance, it is the 'fresh sensation' as well as Juan's innocence that attracts her attention. According to Byron's definition of 'mobility', the reader might expect Adeline's focus to then be drawn away from Juan just as quickly. In terms of narrative, this is the case. After jealously omitting Aurora from her marriage list for Juan, and after apparently competing with 'malicious eyes' (Don Juan, XV.78) for Juan's attention at the dinner table, Adeline again reacts to sudden impulse the next day at breakfast. At first admonishing of her husband's choice in conversation topic (the story of the Black Friar), her mind is quickly changed, interrupting Lord Henry for a second time: 'Well, no matter, 'twas so long ago;/But, come, I'll set your story to a tune' (Don Juan, XVI.38). Distracted from both her initial reluctance to hear the story and her desire to look after Juan, who is 'pale' and looks 'ill' (Don Juan, XVI.31-32), her impulse to perform takes over. It might be argued that Adeline does not forget Juan, and performs in order to impress him. However, it is part of her character that she would 'at times relent,/To such performances with haughty smile,/To show she could' (Don Juan, XVI.42). Her indulgence intends to impress a general audience, rather than specifically Juan. She is drawn to Juan - and then distracted from him - by the same passive process of her 'mobility', a process that reacts to stimuli independently of her conscious desires.

It is just this susceptibility that Byron describes in himself: Just as I make my mind up every day, To be a 'totus, teres,' Stoic, Sage, The wind shifts and I fly into a rage. (Don Juan, XVII.10)

McGann identifies these lines as demonstrating Byron's own 'mobility'. His 'rage' is in antithesis to the calm of 'totus, teres' , and might refer not just to the turbulence of change, but also to his turbulent reaction to the change. He uses the shifting wind as an object of blame, which suggests that he feels frustrated by his 'mobility'. Rather than perceiving it as a positive means of keeping his attention occupied, the poet now sees his 'mobility' as disruptive and restricting. Here the reader may understand how Byron can define 'mobility' as 'a most painful and unhappy attribute'.

The fact that Adeline is 'no deep judge of character' (Don Juan, XV.17) must be a feature 'of temperament and not of art' (Don Juan, XVI.97), and therefore also a feature of her 'mobility'. And so it is due to her 'mobility' that Adeline does not tend to invest interest in others, beyond a shallow understanding, and that she 'Was apt to add a colouring from her own' (Don Juan, XV.17). On the one hand, Byron praises this tendency to project some of her own character onto others; on the other hand, he predicts the negative emotional outcome of its overuse. When 'his science is well known', personified Experience is 'saddest' (Don Juan, XV.17). The poet first aligns himself with the character of Adeline, then predicts her future unhappiness with a sententious tone that suggests he too has suffered the same unhappiness. Clearly, 'mobility' is indeed a 'temperament', and not a means to entertain.

Byron argues that 'mobility' is only 'apparently useful to the possessor'. Indeed, what Juan perceives in Adeline conflicts with what Byron describes in her. Juan comes to doubt 'how much of Adeline was real' (Don Juan, XIV.96). However, the poet states that the way she conducts herself is not 'want of heart' (Don Juan, XIV.97); rather, as AB England suggests, it is a sincere 'responsiveness to the immediate details of her context'. To Juan, 'she acted, all and every part' (Don Juan, XIV.97); in fact, she does not act, but she acts on. The same conflict in appearance is described in her intentions to perform 'as t'were without display,/Yet with display in fact' (Don Juan, XVI.42) This seeming to seem (which is a word that is often applied to the actions and appearance of Adeline) is perhaps why Mark Phillipson claims that 'Adeline is the most spectacularly ambiguous of Byron`s heroines'. Indeed, the nature of 'mobility' is ambiguous, since it is 'false-though true' (Don Juan, XIV.97). Byron avoids making the distinction between truth and falsehood too clear:

I leave it to your people of sagacity To draw the line between the false and true, If such can e`er be drawn by man`s capacity: (Don Juan, XIV.90)

The poet does not want to draw lines to limit the interpretation or discussion of the truth, and in doing so, he encourages the reader to take the same, free approach.

Mobility does not allow the possessor to act completely independently of the past. Drummond Bone suggests that Adeline's understanding of the past as unchangeable, but not to be forgotten is 'sophisticated'. However, her 'ability to retain past impressions', as Bone puts it, may not be intentional, and may in fact seem - to her at, any rate - to be a negative affliction. Byron explains that a possessor of 'mobility' acts 'without losing the past', but it is not made clear whether this person deliberately clings onto the easy-to-lose past, or whether they try to lose this past, yet find it impossible to do so. There seems to be intentional ambiguity in Byron's definition. Adeline's 'mobility', then, may be a way of either embracing whatever past she is aware of, or running away from a past that troubles her. There is textual evidence to support either case, and it could be argued that she is torn between the two mindsets by circumstance.

Adeline is only twenty-one, but has a past that informs her decisions and actions: 'her experience made her sage,/For she had seen the world' (Don Juan, XIV.54). She draws on this experience in order to judge her friend the Duchess of Fitz-Fulke and to save Juan from the Duchess' advances, since 'his inexperience moved her', even though he is only six weeks younger than Adeline (Don Juan, XIV.51). As Moyra Haslett points out, this age advantage allows her 'to justify her domineering role of moral counsellor towards Don Juan'. Adeline's attention is drawn to the 'flirtation' (Don Juan, XIV.43) between Juan and the Duchess, and this reminds her of the social values and constraints attached to her class. As a result, she 'began to think the Duchess' conduct free' (Don Juan, XIV.46). Here, Adeline's view of her friendship with the Duchess changes, and this can be seen as a kind of 'mobility', but this 'mobility' clearly has a dependence on social experience and therefore the past.

Elsewhere in the text, Adeline's 'mobility' can be seen to resist the ties of her past. After Adeline is advised against interfering by her husband, Byron reflects on the nature of the relationship between the two. Adeline's feelings towards Lord Henry change upon this reflection: 'she loved her lord, or thought so' (Don Juan, XIV.86). With her attention drawn to Juan, Adeline actively suppresses thoughts of her past. By removal of association, Adeline sees Juan as 'her husband's friend, her own, young, and a stranger' (Don Juan, XIV.91). This change in perception - increasingly distancing thoughts of Juan from her married life - is an example of Adeline's 'mobility' justifying a change in her emotions by attempting to forget her past. Byron does not reveal whether or not Adeline fulfils her adulterous thoughts. However, the turmoil that Adeline's 'mobility' puts her through may be seen as a way of exploring contemporary moral views on adultery, since 'Don Juan was written at a time of increased moral conservatism'. In this way, her 'mobility' represents a moral and political conflict that is both internal and external. Contextually, McGann argues that the connection between personal and political is a 'widely circulated current idea', an important theme in Romanticism, and one that is 'never more fully realized than in the case of Byron'.

It should not be forgotten that the cantos involving Adeline are satirical and comedic at times. McGann reminds us that

`The satire and comedy of the English cantos - so cool and so urbane - rests upon a series of contradictory emotional involvements which threaten to break through at any point, and which do so repeatedly.`

For Adeline, these 'contradictory emotional' episodes arise - to a certain extent - from her 'mobility'. She certainly experiences a strong, sudden attraction to Juan, and as a result her emotions affect her behaviour. Jealousy of Aurora causes her to omit the 'fittest' (Don Juan, XV.50) candidate from Juan's list of potential wives. She even reacts 'with some disgust' (Don Juan, XV.49) at the mention of Aurora's candidacy. The reader is exposed to the innocent and inquiring workings of Juan's mind, and so Adeline's reactionary behaviour can be seen as a comedic function of the plot. But internally, the character of Adeline is in turmoil: she prevents herself indulging in her attraction to Juan, suppressing the instincts of her 'mobility' that manifest themselves in emotional contradiction. Caroline Franklin touches on the pain of Adeline's condition, and what it represents for Byron and his readers. She suggests that Adeline represents 'self-repression' as one of the 'three stages in an Englishwoman`s life'.

The pain and unhappiness Adeline feels as a result of her 'mobility' is strongly connected with Byron's own unhappiness. Don Juan has a 'self-reflexive nature', and Adeline is identified with Byron in XVI.47. She could 'compose more than she wrote' and 'she was remote'. Her disposition then, in a literary sense at least, is aligned with that of Byron. While Adeline is a functioning, contributing part of the social environment she is placed in, the reader gets the impression that she might be aware of Byron's satirical view of this society. When the dinner guests are viewed critically, her perspective seems to merge with his: Adeline participated In a most edifying conversation,

Which turned upon their late guests` miens and faces, And families, even to the last relation; Their hideous wives, their horrid selves and dresses, And truculent distortion of their tresses. (Don Juan, XVI.103)

Both Byron and Adeline feel constrained by their surroundings, and it is their 'mobility' that sets them apart from the people around them. In this way, it is paradoxically restrictive when it inflicts unhappiness on the possessor.

Not just a single word in a poem of 16000 lines, 'mobility', as Byron presents it, is a psychological condition that represents so much for the individual who possesses it. The conflicts within this condition lead the seemingly joyous possessor into a state of unhappiness. 'Mobility', rather than freeing Byron or Adeline, confines them by definition.

Bibliography

Primary Works

Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, Don Juan in The Complete Poetical Works, ed. by Jerome J McGann, 7 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), Volume V.

Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, Don Juan in The Works of Lord Byron, ed. by Ernest Hartley Coleridge, 7 vols. (London: John Murray, 1903), Volume VI.

Secondary Works

Bone, Drummond, 'Childe Harolde IV, Don Juan and Beppo' in The Cambridge Companion to Byron, ed. by Drummond Bone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 151-170.

Boyd, Elizabeth French, Byron's Don Juan: A Critical Study (New York: The Humanities Press, 1958).

England, AB, 'Byron's Don Juan and the Quest for Deliberate Action', Keats-Shelley Journal 47 (1998), pp. 33-62.

Franklin, Caroline, '"Quiet Cruising o`er the Ocean Woman": Byron`s Don Juan and the Woman Question', Studies in Romanticism 29.4 (1994), pp. 603-631.

Haslett, Moyra, Byron's Don Juan and the Don Juan Legend (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).

McGann, Jerome J, Fiery Dust (London: University of Chicago Press, 1968).

McGann, Jerome J, Don Juan in Context (London: University of Chicago Press, 1976).

McGann, Jerome J, The Romantic Ideology: A Critical Investigation (London: University of Chicago Press, 1983).

McGann, Jerome J, 'Byron's lyric poetry' in The Cambridge Companion to Byron, ed. by Drummond Bone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 209-223.

Phillipson, Mark, 'Byron's Revisited Haunts', Studies in Romanticism 39.2 (2000), pp. 302-322.

Ridenour, George M, The Style of Don Juan (Yale: Yale University Press, 1960).