THE DON JUAN PROJECT
The History of Don Juan
1630
Beginning as a cautionary tale against a life of pleasure, Tirso de Molina’s Don Juan finds his pleasure chasing after women, regardless of station or age. His story is meant to serve as a warning that a life of sin will lead to eternal damnation.
1665
Molière altered the issue of Don Juan to a rationalist unbeliever, but still continued the tradition set by Tirso de Molina “by validating his existence at the expense of others, especially women” (Ter Horst, 1996). However, while Tirso de Molina’s Don Juan was a “wretched villain,” Molière’s Don Juan was a “clever scoundrel” and scholars scoured the text for philosophical content (Gaines, 1984).
1744
The story of Don Juan changed still with Antonio de Zamora’s No hay plazo que no se cumpa ni deuda que no se pague (Bills fall due and debts must be paid) when “the statue interrupts an avenger about to empty his pistol at Don Juan; Ana coarsely plots the murder of her seducer;...and dozens of other titillating episodes,” ending with Don Juan’s redemption and a preview to the discovery that this legendary libertine has a soul (Mandel, 1986).
1787
Mozart’s Don Giovanni is probably the most famous retelling of the legend of Don Juan, but has strayed as far in spirit from Tirso de Molina’s original play than any others (Sedwick, 1955). Don Giovanni has the same characteristics and pleasure seeking qualities as the Don Juans that preceded him, but all of his attempted seductions are foiled and he fails to live up to his reputation.
1761
Based on Molière’s Don Juan, Christoph Willibald Gluck “revitalized the story and brought it back to the stage before aristocratic audiences...with music of great dignity and a kind of heroic grandeur was associated with the legend” with his pantomime ballet (Russell, 1984). Gluck composed the music with the understanding that dance was a separate art form, and choreographer Gasparo Angiolini believed it was the dancer’s job to unite the two. Gluck and Angiolini thus “opened a significant new chapter in ballet history” (Dahms, 2007).
1821
For the first time Don Juan’s mother was mentioned in Lord Byron’s satirical epic poem, Don Juan. Lord Byron introduced Don Juan’s mother, Donna Inez, as a thinly veiled portrait of Byron’s wife—religious and excelling in mathematics. However, Byron reversed the roles with Don Juan being the one pursued.
1830
In The Stone Guest, Alexander Pushkin realized that “underneath the mythical libertine, there has always been a poet...for poets have always been seducing audiences” (Herman, 1999). His Don Juan constantly creates but does not admire art, and “lives to charm others...for behind every act of seemingly deceitful self-presentation, his Juan performs a genuine act of artistic insight, seeing into the heart of his "reader" and assessing her desires as he molds himself to please” (Herman, 1999).
1844
José Zorrilla’s Don Juan Tenorio is the longest running play in Spain, traditionally performed on All Saints Day, and is a more romantic interpretation of the myth of Don Juan. Unlike Tirso de Molina’s Don Juan, Zorrilla’s evolves throughout the play by falling in love with Doña Inés and eventually getting on his knees before the statue of the Commander to ask for mercy.
1900s to Present
And still the myth of Don Juan continues to change. Whether it’s a new play, novel, or one of many movies, the Don Juan legend lives on with brand new stories inspired by the literary figure or simply retelling one of the classics from a new perspective. For example, George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman reversed the roles with women pursuing Don Juan, following Nietzsche’s theory of natural selection that they are the driving force that will ultimately bring about the birth of the superman (Singh, 1994). Later, Max Frisch’s Don Juan, in Don Juan, or the Love for Geometry, “admits the futility of love and, bored with women and indifferent to sex, falls in love with geometry” (Gontrum, 1965).
