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Don Juan and the Baroque

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2024

Jean Rousset

Extract

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Among the great creations of the seventeenth century, one of the liveliest and most rich in promise is Don juan. Even the changes that he undergoes from age to age are full of significance. This article will attempt to clarify one aspect of this evolution from a point of view exclusively that of the baroque.

The reader is asked to accept as the basis for these reflections a definition of the baroque which I have given elsewhere, and which I will merely summarize here.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 4 , Issue 14 , June 1956 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © 1956 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1. For a treatment of the whole, see Gendarme de Bévotte, La Légende de Don Juan (Paris, 1906), and Micheline Sauvage, Le Cas de Don Juan (Paris, Seuil, 1953).

2. La Littérature de l'Age baroque en France (Paris, Corti, 1953).

Chi vuol veder, Marcello,
Proteo d'Amor novello,
Novel Camaleonte,
A me giri la fronte,
Ch'ognor pensier volgendo,
Forme diverse e color vari apprendo.

Tudo se muda em fim, muda-se tudo,
tudo vejo mudar cada momento:
eu de mal em pior tambem me mudo….
Punha-me a ver correr as agoas frias
por cima de alvos seixos repartidas,
que faziam tremer hervas sombrias.

Las horas, que limando están los dias,
Los dias, que royendo están los años.

Far degli amanti, che delle vesti,
Molti averne, un goderne, e cangiar spesso.

Pero fuí desconfiado
De la gran piedad de Dios….
Y yo tambien sea maldito,
Pues que fuí desconfiado!

8. I concur here to a certain extent with the central position of Micheline Sauvage's study; according to her, Don Juan can be understood only in the light of man's temporal condition; he is "the sinner who has chosen time in the place of eternity."

9. Cf. the remarkable work of W. G. Moore, Molière, A New Criticism (Oxford, Claren don, 1949).

10. See on this subject the excellent pages of P. Bénichou, Morales du Grand Siècle (Paris, NRF, 1948), p. 156 ff.