The metamorphosis of the Don Juan legend in Tirso de Molina’s El burlador de Sevilla and Thomas Shadwell’s The libertine

Resumen

This journal article looks into the first metamorphosis of the Don Juan legend in England, from El burlador de Sevilla, attributed to Tirso de Molina, to Thomas Shadwell’s The Libertine. The article is not concerned with the question of who was the real author of the Spanish play. Our first task is to compare the evolution of each narrative in both plays. Secondly, we focus on the portrayal of characters, with special emphasis on the Don Juan figure of each play. The last step is to consider the evolution of the legend itself, paying attention to the two main plots that are combined. The main conclusion is that although the overall story is preserved, the same cannot be said of its feeling. El burlador de Sevilla is capable of containing most of the other interpretations that have appeared in various forms and countries, as Leo Wenstein (1959, p. 23) has put it.