Don Juan

Don Juan (Spanish: [doŋ ˈxwan]), also known as Don Giovanni (Italian), is a legendary fictional Spanish libertine who devotes his life to seducing women.

The original version of the story of Don Juan appears in the 1630 play El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest) by Tirso de Molina. The play includes most of the elements found and later adapted in subsequent works, including the setting (Seville), the characters (Don Juan, his servant, his love interest, and her father, whom he kills), moralistic themes (honor, violence and seduction, vice and retribution), and the dramatic ending in which Don Juan dines with and is then dragged down to hell by the stone statue of the father he had previously slain. Tirso de Molina's play was subsequently adapted into numerous plays and poems, of which the most famous include a 1665 play, Dom Juan, by Molière; a 1787 opera, Don Giovanni, with music by Mozart and a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte largely adapting Tirso de Molina's play; a satirical and epic poem, Don Juan, by Lord Byron; and Don Juan Tenorio, a romantic play by José Zorrilla.

By linguistic extension, from the name of the character, "Don Juan" has become a generic expression for a womanizer, and stemming from this, Don Juanism is a non-clinical psychiatric descriptor.

In Spanish, it is pronounced [doŋˈxwan]. The usual US English pronunciation is /ˌdɒnˈwɑːn/, with two syllables and a silent "J", but today, as more English-speakers are becoming influenced by Spanish, the pronunciation /ˌdɒnˈhwɑːn/ is becoming more common. However, in Lord Byron's verse version the name rhymes with ruin and true one, and traditionally the name was pronounced with three syllables, possibly /ˌdɒnˈʒuːən/ or /ˌdɒnˈdʒuːən/, in England at the time and by later critics. This would have been characteristic of English literary precedent, where English pronunciations were often imposed on Spanish names, such as Don Quixote /ˌdɒnˈkwɪksət/.

There have been many versions of the Don Juan story, but the basic outline remains the same: Don Juan is a wealthy Andalusian libertine who devotes his life to seducing women. He takes great pride in his ability to seduce women of all ages and stations in life, and he often disguises himself and assumes other identities in order to seduce women. The aphorism that Don Juan lives by is: "Tan largo me lo fiáis" (translated as "What a long term you are giving me!"). This is his way of indicating that he is young and that death is still distant—he thinks he has plenty of time to repent later for his sins.

His life is also punctuated with violence and gambling, and in most versions he kills a man: Don Gonzalo (the Commendatore), the father of Doña Ana, a girl he has seduced. This murder leads to the famous "last supper" scene, where Don Juan invites a statue of Don Gonzalo to dinner. There are different versions of the outcome: in some versions Don Juan dies, having been denied salvation by God; in other versions he willingly goes to Hell, having refused to repent; in some versions Don Juan asks for and receives a divine pardon.

The first written version of the Don Juan story was a play, El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest), published in Spain around 1630 by Tirso de Molina (pen name of Gabriel Téllez).

In Tirso de Molina's version Don Juan is portrayed as an evil man who seduces women thanks to his ability to manipulate language and disguise his appearance. This is a demonic attribute, since the devil is known for shape-shifting or taking other peoples' forms. In fact Tirso's play has a clear moralizing intention. Tirso felt that young people were throwing their lives away, because they believed that as long as they made an Act of Contrition before they died, they would automatically receive God's forgiveness for all the wrongs they had done, and enter into heaven. Tirso's play argues in contrast that there is a penalty for sin, and there are even unforgivable sins. The devil himself, who is identified with Don Juan as a shape-shifter and a "man without a name", cannot escape eternal punishment for his unforgivable sins. As in a medieval Danse Macabre, death makes us all equal in that we all must face eternal judgment. Tirso de Molina's theological perspective is quite apparent through the dreadful ending of his play.