La belleza del mal: actualizaciones modernistas(1890-1930) del mito de Don Juan en la literatura española
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Blázquez-Cuena, Juan
- Graduate Program:
- Spanish (PHD)
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 28, 2023
- Committee Members:
- Krista Brune, Major Field Member
Juan Udaondo Alegre, Major Field Member
Nicolás Fernández Medina, Special Member
Eduardo Mendieta, Outside Unit & Field Member
Paola Migliaccio-Dussias, Program Head/Chair
Matthew Marr, Chair & Dissertation Advisor - Keywords:
- Modernismo
Don Juan
Modernidad
Valle-Inclán
Jacinto Grau
Machado
Octavio Picón
Echegaray
Blanca de los Ríos - Abstract:
- The dawn of the twentieth century witnessed the exhaustive recovery of the two great myths of Spanish literature: Don Quixote and Don Juan. The Beauty of Evil studies the motives behind the modernist updates (1890-1930) of the Don Juan myth with the initial aim of understanding how the alterations made by the authors relate to their historical moment and the reason for the character's fascination. The variety and number of works analyzed will make it possible to describe the function and moral utility of the functional components of Don Juan, thereby explaining all the changes he undergoes, as well as the social criticism that results from such changes. The eroticism of the character, together with his ambiguity and deceitful words, constitutes the beauty of evil, a potentially fatal but necessary evil because it exposes individual and collective desires and vices, marking the way to renewal for those who do not fall for his false heroism or falsely condemn him. I follow a methodology that can be extrapolated to any Don Juanesque work and consists of two phases. First, a reference version is taken, in this case, the inaugural play attributed to Andrés de Claramonte, El Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de piedra (c.1616-30), and a re-reading of Don Juan as a character that follows Greek models is carried out. This re-reading from the archetype of the Trickster is based on the work of Ruth Padel and E.R. Dodds to define the three functional components of the model from which to study the variations of the myth during mid-modernism according to the terminology of Nil Santiáñez. Therefore, this dissertation refuses to evaluate the modernist versions of Don Juan under the usual labels of mythicizing or demythologizing. Throughout the three chapters of this dissertation, one for each described functional component of the myth, the particularities and alterations of the myth made in each work will be analyzed and contrasted with the original model, which will allow us to understand, in depth, the reason for the changes according to the historical actuality of Modernity. Systematically, whether they evaluate Don Juan positively or negatively, modernist authors will use the myth to attack the bourgeois tradition and the nihilism and decadentism that thrives in Modernity through it. Their adaptations of Don Juan will range from the invocation of the end of the world to the path to redemption, always appealing to the individual in conflict with society.