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PARTISAN REVIEW
It is hardly necessary to point out that this "guardian of his
own honor" who is so utterly Spanish, is the antithesis of Don Juan
who never gives honor a thought and who is quite impervious to
jealousy.
Don Juan's predecessors were Leucinio, in Juan de la Cueva's
play
El In/amador
(The Defamer), and Leonidio, in Lope de Vega's
La Fianza Satis/echa
(The Redeemed Pledge). One can imagine
the astonishment of the audience, most of them "guardians of their
own honor," when these two Don Juans appeared on the Spanish
stage: barbarians, completely anti-Spanish, and capable of affronting
what to true Iberians is as sacred as God himself-the honor of
their own f.amilies. Lope de Vega's attains the ultimate in wicked–
ness by making love to his own sister. And he does this not out of
love, which might justify the monstrous deed, but quite coolly, out
of a desire "to insult his own blood" and thus "defy the world and
God." This dreadful abuser of honor, this truly anti-Spanish monster,
is diametrically opposed to the Castilian form of love. Don Juan
is his successor.
Andalusia and Don Juan.
But, it will be said, Don Juan
does not come from Castile but from Andalusia, and Andalusia is
something different. Scholars are so convinced that Don Juan comes
from Seville that for years they have conducted researches into the
traditions and chronicles of the great city on the banks of the Guadal–
quivir, in search of historical antecedents of the Seducer. There has
been discussion, with no foundation at all, about certain Tenorios
during the reign of Don Pedro the Cruel. And throughout the ro–
mantic period, and up until the present day, donjuanism has been
identified with a certain gentleman of Seville, a rather more e.xciting
figure, one Don Miguel de Mafiara, who still enjoys, in literary circles,
a certain reputation as a Don Juan. This is a mistake too, not only
because Mafiara lived much later than Tirso de Molina, and there–
fore could not have been Tirso's model, but also because Mafiara
was, above
all,
a mystic. No, it is useless to look in Andalusia for
the originals of Don Juan.
For
if
Spain is an anti-donjuanesque country, Andalusia is the
most anti-donjuanesque of all the regions of Spain, in spite of its
picturesque appearance. The typically Andalusian form of love is
