Dictionary of Phrase and Fable—D

Don Juan

A native of Seville, son of Don José and Donna Inez, a blue-stocking. When Juan was sixteen years old he got into trouble with Donna Julia, and was sent by his mother, then a widow, on his travels. His adventures form the story of the poem, which is incomplete. (Byron: Don Juan.)

A Don Juan.
A libertine of the aristocratic class. The original of this character was Don Juan Tenorio of Seville, who lived in the fourteenth century. The traditions concerning him have been dramatised by Triso de Molina; thence passed into Italy and France. Glück has a musical ballet of Don Juan, and Mozart has immortalised the character in his opera of Don Giovanni (1787).

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
Don Quixote
Don Giovanni
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