Don Juan ante el teatro costumbrista burgués: la censura del seductor como reinterpretación del ideal de masculinidad

Abstract

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Within the context of 19th century costumbrist drama, Manuel Bretón de los Herreros and Ventura de la Vega’s plays habitually showed the ideology and anxieties of their bourgeois public. This essay focuses on the explicit social censorship done to the “seductor” or womanizer using the archetypical character of Don Juan. Under the perspective of the theory of gender, this work shows how the stereotype of don Juan was an antithesis of the desired modernity for the bourgeois society, which was eager to redefine theideal of masculinity. Although vulnerable, women received an active role when redeeming men from their donjuanesque attitudes. In fact, women were destined to guide men to the family, institution that was considered the foundations of current society. The solution to the romantic masculine exaltation of womanizer lies beneath bourgeois women abnegation, the angel in the house.

Keywords

Don Juan, Bretón de los Herreros, Ventura de la Vega, Modernity, Angel in the house