# Hypocrisy and Cant in Don Juan

> Theme guide for Don Juan by Lord Byron.

Byron relentlessly satirizes the moral and social hypocrisy of his era, particularly the gap between public virtue and private vice, as seen in the critique of 'the degraded and hypocritical mass' and the contrast between stated morals and actual behavior.

## Where it surfaces

- [Preface to Cantos VI, VII, and VIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_juan_se/chapters/preface-to-cantos-vi-vii-and-viii): Byron excoriates the 'cant' of the era, particularly the hypocritical mourning for Castlereagh and the double-dealing of English society, quoting Voltaire on the displacement of virtue by measured language.
- [Epigraph](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_juan_se/chapters/epigraph): The Shakespeare quote challenges self-righteous moralizing, suggesting that virtue does not negate the enjoyment of life's pleasures, a key satirical target in the poem.
- [Dedication](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_juan_se/chapters/dedication): Byron excoriates Southey and the Lake Poets for their political apostasy, abandoning liberal principles for Tory patronage, and condemns Castlereagh's hypocritical statesmanship.
- [Don Juan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_juan_se/chapters/don-juan): Donna Inez's moral posturing and the contrast between public virtue and private vice are central to the chapter.
- [Canto I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_juan_se/chapters/canto-i): Donna Inez's strict moral education of Juan is undercut by the narrator's ironic commentary, and the poem satirizes societal pretensions about virtue and education.
- [Canto III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_juan_se/chapters/canto-iii): Lambro's mild manners and gentlemanly breeding mask his violent nature, highlighting the hypocrisy of social and moral codes.
- [Canto X](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_juan_se/chapters/canto-x): The narrator directly addresses Hypocrisy in a stanza, praising it with ironic fervor, and critiques the double standards of virtue in society.
- [Canto XII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_juan_se/chapters/canto-xii): The canto exposes the hypocrisy of virtuous women who 'hate all vice except its reputation' and the double standards of chastity.
- [Canto XIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_juan_se/chapters/canto-xiii): The chapter critiques the hypocrisy of society, where appearances are paramount and virtue is often a facade, as with Mrs. Sleep who 'looked a white lamb, yet was a black sheep.'
- [Canto XIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_juan_se/chapters/canto-xiv): The chapter critiques the superficiality and moral pretense of aristocratic society, where virtue is often a mask.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_juan_se/themes/hypocrisy_and_cant
- Themes index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_juan_se/themes