Don Juan

From Free net encyclopedia

For other uses, see Don Juan (disambiguation).

Don Juan 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 "seducer". The story ends dramatically, with Don Juan's descent into Hell.

1 The Don Juan legend
2 Other Don Juan literature
3 Other works derived from the story of Don Juan
4 See also
5 External links

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The Don Juan legend

The legends say that Don Juan seduced a young girl (Doña Ines) of noble family, and killed her father (Don Fernando). Later, he came across a statue of the father in a cemetery and impiously invited it home to dine with him, an invitation which the statue gladly accepted. The ghost of the father arrived for dinner as the harbinger of Don Juan's death. The Statue asks to shake Don Juan's hand, and when he extends his arm, he is dragged into hell.

Most authorities agree that the first recorded tale of Don Juan is El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Playboy of Seville and Guest of Stone) by Tirso de Molina. Dates vary for the first publication of this, from 1620 to 1635, depending upon the source, although it appeared in Spain as early as 1615.

Depending upon the particular rendition of the legend, Don Juan's character may be presented in one of two perspectives, or somewhere in between. According to some, Don Juan was a simple, lustful womanizer, a cruel seducer who simply gets sex wherever he can. Others, however, see Don Juan as a man who genuinely loves every woman that he seduces, and it is his gift to see the true beauty and intrinsic value which exist within every woman.

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Other Don Juan literature

Another more recent version of the legend of Don Juan is that presented in José Zorilla's (1817-1893) "Don Juan Tenorio" (1844). The version is formatted as a play in which Don Juan is depicted quite villainously. The action starts off with Don Juan meeting with his old friend Don Luis and the two men recounting their conquests and vile deeds of the last year. In terms of the number of murders and of conquests (i.e. seductions), Don Juan out-scores his friend Don Luis. Outdone, Don Luis replies that his friend has never had a woman pure of soul, planting in Don Juan a new tantalizing desire to sleep with a woman of God. Also, Don Juan informs his friend Don Luis that he plans to seduce his future wife. Don Juan manages to seduce both his friend's wife and Doña Ines. Incensed, Doña Ines's father and Don Luis come to try and avenge their lost pride, but Don Juan kills them both, though Don Juan begs them not to attack, for he claims that Doña Ines has shown him the true way. Don Juan gets a little nervous when he is visited by the ghosts of Doña Ines and her father, and the book concludes with a very interesting scene of a veritable tug of war between Doña Ines and her father, with the daughter eventualy winning and pulling Don Juan up into Heaven.

In Aleksandr Blok's porical 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 novel "La Gitanilla" (the she-gipsy) by Miguel de Cervantes, the character who falls in love with the Gitanilla is named Don Juan de Cárcamo, possibly related with the popular legend.

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