Don Juan is Lord Byron's satirical masterpiece. It was based on the legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses portraying Juan not as a womanizer but as a man easily seduced by women. It is a variation on the epic form. Byron himself called it Epic Satire. Modern critics consider it Byron's masterpiece. When the first two cantos were published anonymously in 1819, the poem was criticized for its immoral content by the critics of the day despite its immense popularity.