ABSTRACT
A story as familiar as that of Don Juan can go through innumerable metamorphoses. Carlo Goldoni’s Don Giovanni Tenorio o sia Il Dissoluto of 1736 has already been briefly mentioned as one of da Ponte’s sources. From the early part of the nineteenth century onwards, the supernatural elements began to constitute an embarrassment in themselves, with the result that they were often dispensed with altogether. Don Juan’s virtual suicide in Lenau is the most revealing example. This disappointed idealist has no need of supernatural adversaries; as Hiltrud Gnüg points out, his retribution comes from within as an inescapable psychological consequence of his way of life. An ingenious exploitation of the legend occurs in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s novel After the Death of Don Juan, which is set in the eighteenth century. In this work Don Juan, finding it convenient to disappear for a while, engineers his own ‘death’ with Leporello’s help.
