Don Juan
Don Juan,
Don Giovanni is a legendary, fictional libertine whose story has been told many times by many authors.
El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra by Tirso de Molina is a play set in the fourteenth century that was published in Spain around 1630. Evidence suggests it is the first written version of the
Don Juan legend. Among the best-known works about this character today are Molière's play
Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre, Byron's epic poem
Don Juan, José de Espronceda's poem
El estudiante de Salamanca and José Zorrilla's play
Don Juan Tenorio. Along with Zorrilla's work, arguably the best-known version is
Don Giovanni, an opera composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, first performed in Prague in 1787 and itself the source of inspiration for works by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Alexander Pushkin, Søren Kierkegaard, George Bernard Shaw, and Albert Camus.
Don Juan is used synonymously for "womanizer", especially in Spanish slang, and is often used in reference to hypersexuality. This is evident in William Shakespeare's
Much Ado About Nothing.