I was searching for public domain epic poems that I could use in testing some markup. I hit Don Juan and Divine Comedy before deciding to use chunks of The Faerie Queene.
I found two groovy sources for it: the incomplete Wikisource entry, and this read along site.
Beginning in January 2012, Mike is going to read The Faerie Queene and we’re all invited along. The site is already impressive, and it’s bound to become more so once he’s underway. I hope at some point he expands the about page to a feature length movie.
Are you referring to Byron’s Don Juan? An excellent choice. The Commedia has been heavily studied and documented so it might not be as much fun.
Yes, I am referring to Byron’s, I had forgotten that there was another! 🙂
(here’s a perfect chance for me to figure out how to do citations in WP, I’ve been meaning too, but the cite element has never seemed to make any sense to me)
Good point about the Commedia.
Keep in mind that Byron’s poem is a mock-epic that satirizes the well known stories concerning Don Juan (check Spanish literature, 17th Century). Another way to position Byron’s poem is to remember that if falls between Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Barrymore’s Don Juan (best remembered for a pre-Charlie Chan Warner Oland as Cesare Borgia).