Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
Do you need
volunteer, community service, work, military or court hours?
|
|
Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
|
|
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: DIO-DRO |
|
|
DON JUAN , a legendary character, whose story has found currency in various European countries. He was introduced into formal literature in the Spanish El Burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra, a play which was first printed at Barcelona in 1630, and is usually attributed to Tirso de Molina; but the story of aprofligate inviting a dead man to supper, and finding his invitation accepted, was current before 163o, and is not peculiar to Spain. A Don Juan Tenorio is said to have frequented the court of Peter the Cruel, and at a later period another Don Juan Tenorio, a dissolute gallant, is reported as living at Seville; but there is no satisfactory evidence of their existence, and it is unlikely that the Don Juan legend is based on historical facts. It exists in Picardy as Le Souper de fantome, and variants of it have been found at points so far apart as Iceland and the Azores; the available evidence goes to show that Don Juan is a universal type, that he is the subject of local myths in many countries, that he received his name in Spain, and that the Spanish version of his legend has absorbed certain elements from the French story of Robert the Devil. Some points of resemblance are observable between El Burlador de Sevilla and Dineros son calidad, a play of earlier date by Lope de Vega; but these resemblances are superficial, and the character of Don Juan, the incarnation of perverse sensuality and arrogant blasphemy, may be considered as the creation of Tirso de Molina, though the ascription to him of El Burlador de Sevilla has been disputed. The Spanish drama was apparently more popular in Italy than in Spain, and was frequently given in pantomime by the Italian actors, who accounted for its permanent vogue by saying that Tirso de Molina had sold his soul to the devil for fame. A company of these Italian mimes took the story into France in 1657, and it was dramatized by Dorimond in 1659 and by De Villiers in 1661; their attempts suggested Le Festin de Pierre (1665) to Moliere, who, apparently with the Spanish original
prose
element
Aston
Felix
original
week in November, and has come to be regarded as an essentially national work
The sustained popularity of the Don Juan legend is undoubtedly due in great
pale version of El Burlador de Sevilla the French romantic school made acquaintance with Don Juan, and hence, no doubt, the works of Merimee and Dumas already mentioned, Balzac's Elexir d'une longue vie, and Alfred de Musset's Une Matinee de Don Juan and Namouna. The legend has been treated subsequently by Flaubert and Barbey d'Aurevilly in France, by Landau and Heyse in Germany, and by Sacher-Masoch in Austria. It has always fascinated composers. Mozart's Don Giovanni has annihilated the earlier operas of Le Tellier, Righini, Tritto, Gardi and Gazzaniga; but Gluck's ballet-music still survives, and Henry Purcell's settingthe oldest of allhas saved some of Shadwell's insipid lyrics from oblivion.End of Article: DON JUAN If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/DIO_DRO/DON_JUAN.html"> DON JUAN </a> |
|
|
(Previous) DON COSSACKS, TERRITORY OF THE (Russ. Donskaya ... |
(Next) DONAGHADEE |
|
Sponsored Advertisements