Don Juan in Spanish essays: Miguel de Unamuno, Gregorio Maranon, and Jose Ortega y Gasset

The dissertation explores the divergent interpretations of Don Juan, a national mythological figure, by three of the greatest Spanish intellectuals of the first half of the 20th century: Miguel de Unamuno, Gregorio Maranon, and Jose Ortega y Gasset. Although there are many Spanish intellectuals who wrote about the mythological figure, my work focuses on these three writers because they were foremost in the consideration of Don Juan as a political archetype for Spain's future. This study offers the first in-depth exploration of the interpretation of the Don Juan myth by Spanish essayists. In chapter I, I examine the aftermath of the loss of Empire in 1898 and trends in myth criticism in Spain and in Europe that inspired intellectuals to analyze Don Juan as the nation's symbol of decline and hope. In chapter II, Miguel de Unamuno's negative attitude towards the literary character is examined in conjunction with his emphasis on the importance of current European ideologies on masculinity as a means to heal the nation's political woes. Gregorio Maranon's diagnosis of Don Juan as an effeminate man is the subject of study in chapter III. In order to grasp Maranon's concept, I have explored European medical philosophy on gender and its influence on Maranon's characterization of the mythic lover. The last chapter considers Ortega y Gasset's positive attitude towards the mythological figure. In this chapter, I investigate Friedrich Nietzsche's works, especially his concept of the Ubermensch, and its influence on Ortega's interpretation of Don Juan as a symbol of razon vital. The dissertation closes with a conclusion emphasizing the importance of the incorporation of the broader European discourse into the Spain of the early twentieth-century.