Don Juan Tenorio

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Don Juan Tenorio: Drama religioso-fantástico en dos partes (Don Juan Tenorio: Religious-Fantastic Drama in Two Parts), is a play published in 1844 by José Zorrilla.

A Romantic interpretation of the Don Juan story, it shifts away from the moralistic theme of Tirso de Molina's original play. In the first part of the drama, the hero is still the demonic rake who plagues the Sevilla of Molina. However, don Juan falls in love with doña Inez whose lovely beauty and virtue incites a change (however dubious) in don Juan's character. At the close of the first part (Act IV) don Juan murders doña Inez's father and his cuckolded friend, Don Luís Mejía. The second part begins, five years having transpired, don Juan having been pardoned and thus allowed to return to Sevilla. The protagonist is however murdered by vengeful peers. In a state between life and death, don Juan is given a chance to repent--which he eventually accepts. This carefree character is much more conflicted than Molina's original, and highlights the manner in which the values, for which the archetypes stand, can be reinterpreted. Zorilla's play (and don Juan's final repentance) is often understood as an assertion of the author's conservativism and Catholic faith.

It has become a tradition of Spanish theater to represent el Tenorio on All Saints Day.

External link

[Don Juan Tenorio] from Project Gutenberg in Spanish with English translation

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