The Don Juan Theme. An Annotated Bibliography of Versions, Analogues, Uses, and Adaptations (review)

REVIEWS Armand E. Singer. 77ie Don Juan Theme. An Annotated Bibliography of Versions, Analogues, Uses, andAdaptations. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 1993. Paper. 415 pp. Bibliographers should sin on the side of excess. Since the early 1950s, professor Singer has dedicated his energies to the collection and cataloguing of items related to the Don Juan theme. His 1954 book contained 1370 entries, and was followed by three supplements; his 1965 book contained 1985 entries, and was followed by five supplements (1966-1980) which provided an additional 600 items. Now, his final offering ("I am crying surcease to these labors; I think I have paid my bibliographic dues to the memory ofthe world's most notorious seducer") provides us with 3107 items — "versions, analogues, uses, and adaptations" — which deal with, however tangentially, the Don Juan theme. This bibliography contains no listings of secondary material or criticism (which would have added another 5000 entries ). The book is divided into three parts. The first part (items 1-266) contains items extracted from pre-Tirso legend, folklore, literature, history, and myth. Singer lists folklore and literary versions ofthe hero who faces a statue , the avenging statue, the stone guest, the man who attends his own funeral , etc. Some items here are less useful, as in the sections on "real life" types, which list noted "seducers" such as Alexander the Great, Warren Beatty, Charlie Chaplin, John Cheever, Jason, Jupiter, and Napoleon III; the "Doña Juana" types include Isabel II, Messalina, and Lola Montez (where is Madonna ?). A listing of the Don Juan-like figure in literature could be potentially endless, but Singer provides a generous selection from literatures in Spanish, German, French, Italian, Indian, Arabian, Chinese and other languages . The second part (items 267-3081, plus addendum) provides a rich, abundant , and frequently surprising listing ofplays, poems, musical dramas, operas , novellas, novels, ballets, musical compositions, short stories, puppet 273 274BCom, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Winter 1994) shows, versions in art (paintings, engravings, set decorations, sculptures), and "other" creations by major (Balzac, Molière, Zorrilla, etc.) and minor individuals. While some of this is of little interest to scholars — Oprah Winfrey makes an appearance with her 1990 show on "Husbands who encounter flirtatious women in the workplace" —Singer includes everything that might have real or anecdotal value to someone pursuing the appearance of the Don Juan type in the ancient and modern worlds. Hispanists will be less interested in learning that the hero of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness ofBeing seduces women, or that Philip Roth's bumbling Portnoy tries to do so, or that a moving statue makes an appearance in D.M. Thomas 's novel, The Draughtman's Contract (Peter Greenaway's film version gets no mention) than in having access to accurate detail about literary works which mention Don Juan (Tirso's or Zorrilla's) or the Don Juan type. Singer's painstaking efforts pay off. We learn of the impressive permutations of Don Juan in European literatures (Singer goes well beyond Leo Weinstein's classic 1959 study, 77ze Metamorphoses ofDon Juan and even Ignacio-Javier Lopez's more recent Caballero de novela: Ensayo sobre el donjuanismo en la novela española moderna, 1880-1930, Barcelona: Puvill , 1986), ofhis transformation in other media, and even ofthe appropriation of his name to sell suspenders, sexual aids (a Don Juan "happy ring" was sold by a North Carolina mail order firm), razor blades, lipstick, and an alcohol-filled chocolate candy made in Bologna. Part three is a useful chronological listing ofversions (pp. 38-415). Singer's definitive volume is valuable, all-inclusive, thorough, and entertaining . We even get a limerick: Don Juan, an old man ofgreat honor, Offered marriage in old Tiajuana To a flighty teenager; All it did was enrage her; She replied, "You're too old; I Don Juana. What more could we ask for? David T Gies University ofVirginia ...