DON JUAN

'Don Juan' (or Don Giovanni) is a legendary fictional libertine, whose story has been told many times by different authors. The name is sometimes used figuratively, as a synonym for "womanizer," especially in Spanish slang.

Contents

The Don Juan legend

Character

Other Don Juan literature

Chronology of works derived from the story of Don Juan

References

See also

Further reading

External links

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

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

★ 17th century: ''L'ateista fulminato'', Italian play by unknown author

★ 1630: Tirso de Molina (or Gabriel Téllez and not/not Andrés de Claramonte): ''El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra''

★ 1643: Paolo Zehentner's play ''Promontorium Malae Spei''

★ 1650: Giacinto Andrea Cicognini's play ''Il convitato di pietra''

★ 1658: Dorimon (Nicolas Drouin)'s ''Le festin de pierre, ou le fils criminel''

★ 1659: Jean Deschamps "Villiers"'s play ''Le Festin de Pierre ou le Fils criminel''

★ 1665: Molière's comedy ''Dom Juan ou Le festin de pierre''

★ 1669: Rosimon's ''Festin de pierre, ou l’athée foudroyé''

★ 1676: Thomas Shadwell's play ''The Libertine''

★ 1714?: Antonio de Zamora's play ''No hay plazo que no se cumpla ni deuda que no se pague o convidado de piedra''^[3]

★ 1736: Carlo Goldoni's play ''Don Giovanni Tenorio ossia Il dissoluto''

★ 1761: Christoph Willibald Gluck and Gasparo Angiolini's ballet ''Don Juan''

★ 1787: Giovanni Bertati's opera ''Don Giovanni'', music by Giuseppe Gazzaniga

★ 1787: Lorenzo da Ponte's opera ''Don Giovanni'', music by Mozart

★ 1813: E.T.A. Hoffmann's novella ''Don Juan'' (later collected in ''Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier'')

★ 1821: Byron's epic poem ''Don Juan''

★ 1829: Christian Dietrich Grabbe's play ''Don Juan und Faust''

★ 1830: Pushkin's play ''Каменный гость'' (''Kamenny Gost', ''The Stone Guest'')

★ 1831: Alexandre Dumas' play ''Don Juan de Maraña''

★ 1834: Prosper Mérimée's novella ''Les âmes du Purgatoire''

★ 1840: José de Espronceda's ''El estudiante de Salamanca''

★ 1841: Franz Liszt's Réminiscences de Don Juan on themes from the Mozart opera

★ 1843: Søren Kierkegaard's ''Either/or'' in which he discusses Mozart's musical interpretation of ''Don Giovanni''

★ 1844: Nikolaus Lenau's play ''Don Juan''

★ 1844: José Zorrilla's play ''Don Juan Tenorio''

★ 1861: Charles Baudelaire's poem ''Don Juan aux enfers''

★ 1872: Alexander Dargomyzhsky's opera ''The Stone Guest''

★ 1874: Guerra Junqueiro's poem ''A morte de D. João''

★ 1878: ''The Finding of Don Juan by Haidee'', painting by Ford Madox Brown

★ 1883: Paul Heyse's "Don Juans Ende"

★ 1888: Richard Strauss' symphonic poem ''Don Juan''

★ 1903: George Bernard Shaw's play ''Man and Superman''

★ 1902-5: Ramón del Valle-Inclán's ''Las sonatas''

★ 1906 : Ruperto Chapí's opera ''Margarita la tornera'', based on José Zorrilla's dramatic poem. This features a seducer of women known as Don Juan Alarcon.

★ 1907: Guillaume Apollinaire's novel ''Les exploits d'un jeune Don Juan''

★ 1910: Gaston Leroux's novel ''Phantom of the Opera'', which includes an opera called ''Don Juan Triumphant''.

★ 1910-12: Aleksandr Blok's ''The Commander's Footsteps'' (Шаги командора)

★ 1913: Jacinto Grau's play ''Don Juan de Carillana''; also, the play ''El burlador que no se burla'' (1927) and the essay ''Don Juan en el tiempo y en el espacio'' (1954)

★ 1921: Edmond Rostand's play ''La dernière nuit de Don Juan''

★ 1922: Azorín' ''Don Juan''

★ 1926: Ramón Pérez de Ayala's novel and play ''Tigre Juan''

★ 1926: ''Don Juan'', starring John Barrymore, silent film with Vitaphone soundtrack.

★ ?: Serafín and Joaquín Álvarez Quintero's play ''Don Juan''

★ 1934: Miguel de Unamuno's ''Don Juan''

★ 1934: ''The Private Life of Don Juan'', Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.'s last film

★ 1934-49: André Obey: ''Don Juan''

★ 1936: Ödön von Horváth's ''Don Juan kommt aus dem Krieg''

★ 1938 Sylvia Townsend Warner's novel "After the Death of Don Juan"

★ 1942: Paul Goodman's novel ''Don Juan or, The Continuum of the Libido'', edited by Taylor Stoehr, 1979.

★ 1946: Suzanne Lilar, play "Le Burlador", an original reinterpretation of the myth of Don Juan from the female perspective that revealed a profound capacity for psychological analysis.

★ 1949: ''Adventures of Don Juan'', film starring Errol Flynn

★ 1953: Max Frisch's ''Don Juan oder die Liebe zur Geometrie''; also ''Nachträgliches zu Don Juan''

★ 1954: Ronald Frederick Duncan's play ''Don Juan''

★ 1955: Ingmar Bergman's play ''Don Juan''

★ 1958: Henry de Montherlant's play ''Don Juan''

★ 1959: Roger Vailland's play ''Monsieur Jean''

★ 1960: Ingmar Bergman film ''Djävulens öga''(''The Devil's Eye'')

★ 1963: Gonzalo Torrente Ballester's novel ''Don Juan''

★ 1969: Jan Švankmajer's ''Don Šajn'' (Don Juan); a short retelling of the Don Juan legend featuring live-action, stop-motion animation, and marionettes.

★ 1970: ''The Stoned Guest'', a half-act opera by P. D. Q. Bach

★ 1973: ''Don Juan ou Si Don Juan était une femme...'', film starring Brigitte Bardot

★ 1974: Derek Walcott's play, ''The Joker of Seville''

★ 1977: Joni Mitchell's song and album, "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter"

★ 1988: The Pet Shop Boys song "Don Juan", which used the story as a metaphor for the seduction of the Balkans by Nazism during the 1930s

★ 1990: Almeida Faria's novel ''O Conquistador'' (The Conqueror).

★ 1991: Georges Pichard's ''Exploits d'un Don Juan'', comic from Apollinaire's novel

★ 1992: The song, "The Statue Got Me High" by They Might Be Giants, is a contemporary, semi-abstract retelling of ''Don Giovanni''.

★ 1995: ''Don Juan DeMarco'', film starring Johnny Depp in the role of Don Juan, and also starring Marlon Brando

★ 1997: David Ives' comedy ''Don Juan in Chicago''

★ 2003: Gregory Maupin's play ''Don Juan, A Comedy'' (a new adaptation)

★ 2004: Peter Handke's novel ''Don Juan (erzählt von ihm selbst)'' ("Don Juan (Told by Himself)")

★ 2004: Georgi Gospodnov`s play D.J.

★ 2005: José Saramago's play ''Don Giovanni ou O Dissoluto Absolvido'' (Don Giovanni or The Dissolute Acquitted).

★ 2005: Jim Jarmusch - filme ''Broken Flowers''.

★ 2006: Andrzej Bart's novel ''Don Juan raz jeszcze'' (Don Juan: once again)

★ 2006: Joel Beers' play '' The Don Juan Project'' (an examination of the myth's relevance in contemporary times)]]

★ 2006: ''Don Juan in Soho'', a play by Patrick Marber

★ 2007: Douglas Carlton Abrams's novel''The Lost Diary of Don Juan''^[4]
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

★ James Bond, a fictional modern seducer

★ Giacomo Casanova, a historic seducer

★ Ximen Qing, a Chinese historic seducer

★ Hugh Hefner, a nonfictional modern seducer

★ Don Giovanni

Further reading

Vita avventure e morte di Don Giovanni, , Giovanni, Macchia, Adelphi, 1995, ISBN 88-459-0826-7
La leyenda de Don Juan, , Víctor, Said Armesto, Espasa-Calpe, 1968,

External links

★ Dom Juan de Molière : Plot overview (in French)

★ Enciclopædia Britannica article about Don Juan