Abstract

This essay looks at pagan disguises utilized in plays and courtly entertainments of the Golden Age, focusing on El burlador de Sevilla. Don Juan and all those who surround him, turn to mythology, pretending to be deities and thus reflecting the theatrical culture of the court where the nobility often assumed such pagan guises. When he metamorphoses himself into Jupiter, don Juan reminds us that this particular guise was common in most European courts of the times were courtiers and kings imagined themselves as abiding in a new Olympus. Don Juan, then, defies society, utilizing the same symbols of power that served to exalt the Habsburgs. Don Juan’s power of metamorphosis is seen most clearly in Tisbea and Isabela who both play the part of Europa to the god/bull.

Abstract

Este artículo está dedicado a la comparación tipológica de dos obras de teatro —El rufián dichoso de Miguel de Cervantes y El burlador de Sevilla de Tirso de Molina— y tiene como objetivo destacar las semejanzas y las diferencias entre las dos comedias, mostrando algunos aspectos generales de la evolución dramática en el Siglo de Oro.