Don Juan Tenorio and the characteristics of romanticism

Get ready for a film trip to the 19th century, where we will discover the magnificent work Don Juan Tenorio, from Jose Zorrilla, as well as the characteristics of romanticism, an artistic movement that flooded the Europe of the time and that this tragic history reflects in all its splendor. Today's lesson from a TEACHER begins.

José Zorrilla was a playwright with an extensive work Born in Valladolid, although a large part of his production was carried out in the capital, Madrid. However, despite being a prolific romantic poet and playwright, his most popular work by far was Don Juan Tenorio, written in 1844, and which enjoyed enormous fame in its time, and continues to this day.

Curiously, the very life of José Zorrilla is like a kind of romantic poem. He gave up studying law, even though his family was willing to pay for his degree, and he preferred to live in the streets and cafes, participating in writers' gatherings.

He rose to fame for a poem read at the funeral of Mariano José de Larra, tragic death, he lived in France and Mexico, and he died in poverty, since, despite his success, finances were not his best asset personal.

As we have well commented, the most successful work in Zorrilla's poetic career was Don Juan Tenorio. A play in Spanish released in 1844, and that has been represented without rest ever since, and has even been covered in cinema, opera, etc.

Don Juan Tenorio is inspired by the adventures of another previous play, belonging to Tirso de Molina, and written on the Golden age, of great influence for Zorrilla, The Trickster of Seville.

Synopsis of Don Juan Tenorio

As for the history of this play, it narrates in two parts The bet a Carnival night in Seville between two men, one of them Don Juan Tenorio himself, the other Don Luis Mejía, who boast of having killed many men and conquered a large number of women.

In fact, this is where the aforementioned bet arises, which will show who is bravest and cunning. But given the similarity of both lives, they decide that there must be a winner and they promise to see who is capable of seducing two women simultaneously, a fiancée and a novice.

That same night of the bet, Don Juan locks up Don Luis in a cellar, and he is able to seduce Doña Ana, his fiancée, posing as him, and then he does the same on the way to the convent to do the same with Doña Inés.

Finally, his ruse is discovered by Don Luis, who chooses to take revenge on him in the face of the dishonor of his fiancée, but in the confusion of the scene with Don Gonzalo, father of Doña Inés, who has intuited Don Juan's intentions, the protagonist ends up killing both of them.

5 years later, Don Juan returns to Seville, a city that he left after the altercation, and finds the possessions relatives turned into a tomb, where doña Inés, Don Gonzalo, Don Luís, and even people who died for his sake.

Finally, the moment of magical romanticism arrives, since Don Gonzalo and Doña Inés chase him from the hereafter so that he can redeem himself for his crimes and his wickedness, before going with them to the other world, already deceased.

In this other lesson we will discover the main characters of Don Juan Tenorio.

Of course, we find many characteristics of romanticism in Don Juan Tenorio, since it is a purely romantic work:

• The love and feeling exacerbated It is the main theme that moves the entire work.
• We find the male character, Don Juan Tenorio, a quarrelsome and irreverent, who is redeemed thanks to the pure soul of Mrs. Ines, which transforms the sinner into a free spirit saved from eternal damnation.
• Another element that occurs in the work, and very typical of romanticism, is the graveyard, which we see in many other poems and texts of the movement.
• Also the night is a romantic classic widely used by its authors to add mystery.
• The first part of the work takes place in the Carnivals of Seville, where masks are worn, which allowed delve into the mystery, very classic also of this style.
• And of course, death, the tragic end, totally linked to romanticism, since the strength and purity of feelings always used to end in tragedy, as in this same work, without forgetting a certain supernatural component, very classic in the Romantic.