Don Juan

Definition

Don Juan rate

(Adult / Slang)

1. Colloquially, a seductive, sexually promiscuous male; a philanderer, a rake, the prototype of the unrepentant libertine; the archetypal womanizer, based on the legendary Spanish nobleman known mainly for his dissolute life and many seductions.

2. In psychology, a male who suffers from an excessive urge to have sexual relations, a condition known as Don Juanism, Don Juan syndrome, or satyriasis, and akin to the female nymphomania. This type of man is more gratified by his conquests than by the physical union itself and looses interest in a woman following sexual conquest; the number of seductions is less important than his continual need to prove himself. Most don juans are latent homosexuals.

3. In literature, a legendary Spanish libertine and seducer of women. First appeared as the central charater of a play, El burlador de Sevilla (The Libertine of Seville, 1630), by A. Gabriel Tellez (1571-1641), writing under the pseudonym Tirso de Molina. The second Spanish treatment of this theme is the play Don Juan tenorio (Don Juan the Rake, 1844) by Jose Zorrilla y Moral (1817-93). It was later dramatized by the French playwright Moliere who wrote Don Juan; ou, Le festine de pierre (Don Juan; or, The Stone Banquet, 1665). In England, the theme was treated in 17 ^th century England by Sir Aston Cokayne (1608-84) in The Tragedy of Ovid (1669), by Thomas Shadwell in The Libertine (1676), by Lord Byron in his Don Juan (1819-24), and by George Bernard Shaw in his comedy Man and Superman (1903). In music, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (1787) and Richard Strauss' Don Juan (1889).