Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2002 | Page 89

Petter Sellars’ D on G iovan n i

85

to it with almost academic perfection” (21). The works discussed in this analysis
span early seventeenth-century Spain, late eighteenth-century Austria, and late
twentieth- and early twenty-first-century United States. In every don Juan story,
the protagonist is defeated or dies only to be resuscitated in the next text. Despite
the contemporary shortage of sexual innocence, the weakening of patriarchal norms,
and the erosion of moral certainty, don Juan is alive and well and living in
contemporary society.
Monogamy, on the other hand, could put an end to don Juan’s evolution.
Unlike most moral barometers, don Juan walks a fine ethical line. Being married
to one play or one partner, would immobilize don Juan in the sexual and textual
practices of a specific historical era. Only by exercising his promiscuity can the
libertine discover that, for example, a violent drug culture, racial inequities, and
faced-paced consumerism are just as lethal as reckless womanizing and religious
infractions. Furthermore, the spectator can always count on him to identify, and
then transgress, the limits of socially acceptable behavior. Don Juan has found
ingenious ways to attract or repulse in countless artistic creations and different
historical eras. Only by insinuating himself into the needs of a particular historical
period or a specific dramatic moment has he survived this long. Whether viewed
as hero or scapegoat, the licentious don Juan will continue to explore forbidden
sexual and textual pleasures.
University of North Carolina, Wilmington

Denise M. DiPuccio

Notes
1. The Association o f Hispanic Classical Theater has a copy o f this production in its
video collection.
2 Singer’s bibliographies are a point o f departure for understanding the magnitude o f
don Juan literature that exists. The original bibliography and the five supplements
record over 4600 entries. More recently, Dante Medina’s bibliography continues in the
same vein. Medina’s website, Don Juan, at http://www.don-juan.com/index.html,
advertises a CD ROM bibliography called The Comprehensive Bibliography of Don
Juan in All the Arts. The topics o f his bibliography range from art and literary theory to
customs and cuisine.
3 .
I am aware o f the debate over the true authorship o f El burlador de Sevilla. My use o f
Tirso’s name, a pseudonym for fray Gabriel Tellez, is purely stylistic. Simply put, it is
less cumbersome to say Tirso than the ‘'purported author o f El burlador.'"
4. Editions o f these and other don Juan texts mentioned in this essay can be found in
M andel’s anthology. Otto Rank’s discussion o f Leporello clearly examines the
psychological dimensions o f the servant figure in the don Juan myth.
5. Perhaps the first in a long line o f “wannabes” is Mota in Tirso’s El burlador de Sevilla.
6 . Parker, Rank, and Rodriguez have explicitly dealt with don Juan’s social, moral, and
psychological transgressions.

.