Don Juan:
Or: don juan :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).
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