Synopsis
Speaking of Don Juan, Wenceslao Fernández Flórez said that Zorrilla "heard the heart of Spain beating under his velvet jerkin: the heart of national romanticism, his own heart." The structure of the work also perfectly reflects the romantic ideal: the mystery of the characters, the masks, the conquest, the flight, the gloominess of the second part, the love dialogues, the confrontation with God and salvation through love. Everything coincides in pointing to this work as one of the milestones that marks with greater precision the value of the surprising and the emotional as the supreme form of knowledge of the world. The reader, even today, trembles, vibrates, moves away from any rationalism to fully immerse himself in the world of the most overflowing passion. José Zorrilla (1817-1893) knew how to endow the figure of Don Juan with a personal and personal vision that elevates him above most of the authors who have touched on this attractive and suggestive myth. The prologue by Francisco Nieva and the edition by Juan Francisco Peña offer a current reading perspective.