Desiring beyond tragedy: Anne Lister’s diaries as a queer reconfiguration of the myth of Don Juan

This article examines Anne Lister's diaries as a space for a queer reconfiguration of the Don Juan myth in early nineteenth-century English context. Rather than identifying Lister with the libertine hero, it treats Don Juan archetype as a critical lens through which to reconsider seduction and desire once it is no longer supported by masculine privilege. Through close readings of selected diary entries, the discussion traces how Lister's persistent courtships do not follow a pattern of conquest but emerge from vulnerability and in the hope of domestic stability. Instead of ending in moral punishment, her story is determined by exclusion and by the difficulty of finding recognition in the social sphere. The diary, especially in its coded passages, become a space to register her desire under conditions of risk and surveillance, allowing for a rethinking of Don Juanism as a historically situated negotiation of desire and survival.