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* [[1761]]: [[Christoph Willibald Gluck]] and [[Gasparo Angiolini]]'s ballet ''Don Juan''
* [[1761]]: [[Christoph Willibald Gluck]] and [[Gasparo Angiolini]]'s ballet ''Don Juan''
* [[1787]]: [[Giovanni Bertati]]'s opera ''Don Giovanni'', music by [[Giuseppe Gazzaniga]]
* [[1787]]: [[Giovanni Bertati]]'s opera ''Don Giovanni'', music by [[Giuseppe Gazzaniga]]
* [[1787]]: [[Lorenzo da Ponte]]'s opera ''[[Don Giovanni]]'', music by [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]]
* [[1787]]: [[Lorenzo da Ponte]]'s opera ''[[Don Giovanni]]'', music by [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]] *[http://www.lulu.com/content/1352491] '''Original libretto, 1787'''
* [[1813]]: [[E.T.A. Hoffmann]]'s novella ''Don Juan'' (later collected in ''Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier'')
* [[1813]]: [[E.T.A. Hoffmann]]'s novella ''Don Juan'' (later collected in ''Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier'')
* [[1821]]: [[George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron|Byron]]'s epic poem ''[[Don Juan (Byron)|Don Juan]]''
* [[1821]]: [[George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron|Byron]]'s epic poem ''[[Don Juan (Byron)|Don Juan]]''

Revision as of 07:25, 31 October 2007

For other uses, see Don Juan (disambiguation).
Don Juan with his sword in Don Giovanni, by Mozart

Don Juan (or Don Giovanni) is a legendary fictional libertine, whose story has been told many times by different authors. "El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra ", is a play by Tirso de Molina, published in Spain around 1630 , and set in the 14th century. Evidence suggests it to be the first written version of the Don Juan legend. The other main work in Spanish literature about this character is "Don Juan Tenorio", a play written in 1844 by José Zorrilla.

The name is sometimes used figuratively, as a synonym for "womanizer," especially in Spanish slang.

The Don Juan legend

In the legend, Don Juan either raped or seduced a young woman of noble family, and killed her father. Later, he encountered a statue of her father in a cemetery and impiously invited it home to dine with him, an invitation the statue gladly accepted. The ghost of the father arrived for dinner, as the harbinger of Don Juan's death. The statue asked to shake Don Juan's hand, and when he extended his arm, the statue dragged him away to Hell.[1]

In Hell, the Devil meets Don Juan. The Devil tells him that everyone in Hell is cast in a role, and then presents him with a Jester's suit, telling him, "You'll make an excellent fool." Don Juan is insulted by this, protesting that no other man was his equal, "I am the man who made a thousand conquests!" Intrigued by that claim, the Devil tells him that if he can correctly name one conquest, he would not have to wear the suit. Thus began the parade of women. Not once could Don Juan name one correctly. Finally, one woman stands before him, tears on her face; "Yes," the Devil says, "this is the one woman who truly loved you". Helpless, Don Juan looks into her eyes, then turns to the Devil and says, "Give me the suit". [2]

Character

Most authorities agree that the first recorded tale of Don Juan is El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest) by Tirso de Molina. Its publication date ranging from 1620 to 1625, depending upon the source, although it appeared in Spain as early as 1615. Don Juan is an unrepentant womanizer who seduces women either by disguising himself as their lovers or by promising marriage. He leaves a trail of broken hearts, angry husbands, and outraged fathers; finally slaying a certain Don Gonzálo. Later, when invited to supper in the cathedral by Don Gonzálo's ghost, he accepts, not wanting to appear the coward.

Depending upon the particular rendition of the legend, Don Juan's character is seen from one of two perspectives; a simple, lustful womanizer and cruel seducer who gets sex wherever he can, or a man who genuinely loves every woman he seduces, with the gift to see the true beauty and intrinsic value of every woman. The early versions of the legend of Don Juan always portray him in the former light.

Other Don Juan literature

Ilya Repin «Don Juan and Doña Ana»

Another, more recent version of the legend of Don Juan is José Zorilla's (1817-1893) nineteenth century play Don Juan Tenorio (1844) wherein Don Juan is a villain. It begins with Don Juan meeting his old friend Don Luís, and the two men recounting their conquests and vile deeds of the year past. In terms of the number of murders and conquests (seductions), Don Juan out-scores his friend Don Luís. Outdone, Don Luís replies that his friend has never had a woman of pure soul; sowing in Don Juan a new, tantalizing desire to sleep with a Woman of God. Also, Don Juan informs his friend that he plans to seduce his (Don Luís's) future wife. Don Juan seduces both his friend's wife and Doña Inés. Incensed, Doña Inés's father and Don Luís try avenging their lost prides, but Don Juan kills them both, despite his begging them to not attack, for, he claims, Doña Inés has shown him the true way. Don Juan becomes nervous when visited by the ghosts of Doña Inés and her father; the play concludes with a tug of war between Doña Inés and her father, for Don Juan, the daughter eventually winning and pulling him to Heaven.

In Aleksandr Blok's poetic depiction, the statue is only mentioned as a fearful approaching figure, while a deceased Donna Anna ("Anna, Anna, is it sweet to sleep in the grave? Is it sweet to dream unearthly dreams") is waiting to return to him in the fast-approaching hour of his death.

In the novella La Gitanilla (The Little Gypsy Girl), by Miguel de Cervantes de Saavedra, the character who falls in love with the eponymous heroine is named Don Juan de Cárcamo, possibly related to the popular legend.

The 1736 play titled Don Juan (Don Giovanni Tenorio, ossia Il Dissoluto) was written by Carlo Goldoni, a famous Italian comic playwright of the time.

In Phantom of the Opera, the title of the opera written by the Phantom is Don Juan Triumphant.

In the musical Les Misérables, in the song Red and Black Grantaire compares Marius to Don Juan.

The Romantic poet Lord Byron wrote an epic version of Don Juan that is considered his masterpiece. It was unfinished at his death, but portrays Don Juan as the innocent victim of a repressive Catholic upbringing who unwittingly stumbles upon and into love time and again. For example, in Canto II he is shipwrecked and washed ashore an island, from where he is rescued by the beautiful daughter of a Greek pirate, who nurses him to health: a loving relationship develops. When her pirate father returns from his journey, however, he is angry and sells Don Juan into slavery, where, in turn, a Sultan's wife buys him for her pleasure. Lord Byron's Don Juan is less seducer than victim of women's desire and unfortunate circumstance.

Moreover, according to Harold Bloom, the Edmund character in King Lear, by William Shakespeare, anticipates the Don Juan archetype by a few decades, while existentialist intellectual Albert Camus represents Don Juan as an archetypical absurd man in the essay The Myth of Sisyphus (1942). In Philippine literature, Don Juan is the protagonist of the Ibong Adarna story, who, though portrayed in a good light, is known to have a weakness for beautiful women and tends to womanizing, having at least two simultaneous relationships (Doña Maria, Doña Leonora, Doña Juana). George Bernard Shaw's play Man and Superman also is a Don Juan play; described by Shaw its preface.

Chronology of works derived from the story of Don Juan

Also there is a book from Jozef Toman with name "The life and death of don Miguel de Manara".

Both the Flynn and Fairbanks versions turn Don Juan into a likeable rogue, rather than the heartless seducer that he is usually presented as being. The Flynn movie even has him successfully foiling a treasonous plot in the Spanish royal court. Shaw's play turns him into a philosophical character who enjoys contemplating the purpose of life. Beers' play turns him into a poetic, epic character recoiling from the debasing popular image of womanizer and cheap lover.

References

  1. ^ http://tacit.caltech.edu/hell/djplot.html
  2. ^ "In Search of... Great Lovers (1981)"
  3. ^ http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_de_Zamora
  4. ^ http://www.lostdiaryofdonjuan.com

See also

Further reading

Macchia, Giovanni (1995) [[[1991]]]. Vita avventure e morte di Don Giovanni (in Italian). Milano: Adelphi. ISBN 88-459-0826-7. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

Said Armesto, Víctor (1968) [[[1946]]]. La leyenda de Don Juan (in Spanish). Madrid: Espasa-Calpe. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

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