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Don Juan is a pretty famous guy, and I had been meaning to read this play for quite some time so that I could see him in his original manifestation. I'd read José Zorilla's 19th century interpretation of the story, so I had an idea of what was going to happen, but I was still surprised by the dastardly ways of the 17th century Don Juan. He admits, straight up, that what he enjoys most in life is tricking a woman out of her honor, and that's basically what he does for the entire play. He runs through four women, deceiving them, pretending to be their fiancé, promising to marry them, and doing whatever is necessary to obtain their physical favors. He laughs off the warnings of his servant, Catalinón, as well as his father, both of whom warn him that he'll pay for his sins, if not in this life, then in the next one. He jumps from place to place, from Italy to the shores of Spain to Sevilla and on, leaving a wake of dishonored women behind, never doubting that he'll be able to get away with it all in the end because his father works for the king. Eventually, he makes a joke about how only a dead man would be able to do him in, and soon afterward, an animate statue of the man he recently killed during his escape from the home of Ana de Ulloa knocks at his door, accepting Don Juan's invitation to join him at his table then inviting the trickster to the church in order to return the favor. They have a final showdown there, because Don Juan, sure to the end that his smarts and trickery will allow him to escape from any situation, gladly accepts the statue's ominous invitation to dine at the church.

I really enjoyed this play, and was surprised by the title character's complete lack of remorse for his acts. It was surprising to see a nobleman depicted in such a negative light, because his priveleged upbringing got him off the hook for most of the play; even the king was content to turn a blind eye to a certain extent and seek a solution that would make the Don Juan problem disappear, rather than punishing him for his lies and deceit. My idea of Don Juan was more that of a good-natured lover of the ladies, and this guy was certainly not good-natured. In fact, he took a great deal of pleasure in leaving women without their honor, which in those times was a pretty awful and shameful thing. Although it was not particularly graphic, at lease not as much as I remember La Celestina being, I was still surprised by the play's treatment of the upper classes and its depiction of an out-of-control child of privilege. Don Juan was indeed recognizable to me, just not quite as the guy I thought he was going to be. I've known some young people who did bad things and thought they could get away with them due to their parents' social status, and it was interesting to think that they are the contemporary incarnations of the legendary Don Juan.

I also enjoyed comparing this play with some of the French plays by Racine and Corneille that I've read recently. Whereas they strove to maintain the unity of space, action and time, this play tears all three of these continuities asunder. They jump from Italy to Spain, at a moment's notice, and actions that take place in one place are immediately followed by other that take place hundreds of miles away. The play spans months in time, with Don Juan traveling from Naples to the shores of Spain within a single act. This is all fine with me: while I enjoyed seeing how one might construct a play while respecting the theatrical unities of space, action and time, It certainly doesn't seem entirely necessary. Whereas Racine, in a play like Bérénice, was able to construct a compelling play that could take place in a single setting on a single day, the author of this play took all the liberties he wanted, and I was entertained just the same.

I was a bit wary of the 120-page introduction to this edition, but in light of the complex issues surrounding this play, the scholar Alfredo Rodrígues López-Vázquez is probably justified in providing the reader such a long-winded study. He begins by discussing the genesis of what is today know as El burlador de Sevilla, but which may originally have been known by a different name, Tan largo me lo fiáis, which is the recurring refrain of Don Juan Tenorio when people tell him off for taking the honor of another woman and warn him that he'll get his some day; it means, approximately, "Wow, you're going to be waiting for quite a long time for that to happen!" López-Vázquez cites various reasons for believing that Tan Largo predates El Burlador, which is itself a recreation of the original text by theater groups who had performed it during the years following its creation. In looking at the differences between the two texts, many of the segments that are missing from El Burlador correspond to lines spoken by minor characters, which corroborates the idea that a theater group, when recreating the text, would have been able to piece together the major characters' roles as played by the various members of the group, but would struggle more with the bit parts and their placement in the larger text. Contemporary editions of the play have relied on both versions in order to piece together the play as it was meant to be performed. There has been, understandably, a fair amount of disagreement regarding differences in interpretation of various lines in the play, and the play itself contains footnotes which explain the history of some of the more contentious portions of the text.

The bulk of the introduction, though, is devoted to questions of authorship. Tirso de Molina has been thought to be the author, but López-Vázquez has devoted years of research to the issue, and presents the reader with many, many reasons why we should consider this original representation of Don Juan to be the work of Andrés de Claramonte. Claramonte was a contemporary of Tirso de Molina whose work was largely overlooked for centuries, but has lately been reexamined and revalued by scholars such as López-Vázquez. He has evaluated the work from many different angles, comparing Tan largo me lo fiáis and El burlador de Sevilla to the bodies of work of both Villamonte and Tirso, and showing why, stylistically, the play is better-attributed to Villamonte, due to the presence in it of specific motifs, metaphors and mythological references that Villamonte consistently employs in his dramatic works. It is also worth noting that he wrote another play, Deste agua no beberé, which shares many similarities with the original text of Tan largo me lo fiáis. I eventually grew fatigued from the sheer bulk of evidence that he provides to show why he believes this play should be attributed to Claramonte, and ended up skipping the final section, which was written to accompany this seventh Cátedra edition. Up to that point he´d made a strong case, and based on all the evidence he presented, I didn't see any reason besides simple inertia to continue attributing this play to Tirso de Molina. I enjoyed reading López-Vázquez's long-winded efforts to prove Villamonte's authorship, and a future edition carrying the words "Atribuida a Andrés de Villamonte" instead of "Atribuida a Tirso de Molina" would certainly bring a smile to my face. ( )