Fascinating. I'd like to know more about AB's musical version of Don Juan: how far did he get with the project?
One small correction: "Byrne" does start in ottava rima, but then halfway through it shifts to Spenserian stanzas, for, I would say, no very good reason.
There are only two surviving fragments of the Don Juan musical, both of which appear in the Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2020).
Byrne does shift into Spenserian stanzas for a single chapter, and there are sonnets and other verse forms in the closing section (it's suggested that Tomlinson, like Rawcliffe before him, has stolen these poems from Enderby). Burgess always referred to Byrne as a novel in ottava rima, and we used the same short form in the post. The early drafts contain some fascinating digressions in prose, none of which survived into the final version.
Fascinating. I'd like to know more about AB's musical version of Don Juan: how far did he get with the project?
One small correction: "Byrne" does start in ottava rima, but then halfway through it shifts to Spenserian stanzas, for, I would say, no very good reason.
There are only two surviving fragments of the Don Juan musical, both of which appear in the Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2020).
Byrne does shift into Spenserian stanzas for a single chapter, and there are sonnets and other verse forms in the closing section (it's suggested that Tomlinson, like Rawcliffe before him, has stolen these poems from Enderby). Burgess always referred to Byrne as a novel in ottava rima, and we used the same short form in the post. The early drafts contain some fascinating digressions in prose, none of which survived into the final version.