Chapter Joseph to Juan Fernandez of J by Brewer's Readers Handbook

JUAN, in The Spanish Gypsy, a dramatic poem by George Eliot (Mrs. J. W. Cross) (1868).

Juan was a troubadour, …
Freshening life’s dusty road with babbling rills
Of wit and song.

Juan (Don), a hero of the sixteenth century, a natural son of Charles-quint, bo rn at Ratisbonne, in 1545. He conquered the Moors of Granada, won a great naval victory over the Turks at Lepanto, made himself master of Tunis, and put down the insurgents of the Netherlands (1545–1578).

(This is the don Juan of C. Delavigne’s drama entitled Don Juan d’Autriche, 1835.)

Juan (Don), son of don Louis Tenorio, of Sicily, a heartless roué. His valet says of him—

“Tu vois en don Juan le plus grand scélérat que la terre ait jamais porté, un enragé, un chien, un démon, un Turc, un hérétique qui ne croit ni ciel, ni enfer, ni diable, qui passe cette vie en véritable bête brute, un pourceau d’Epicure, un vrai Sardanapale; qui ferme l’oreille à toutes les remontrances qu’on lui peut faire, et traite de billevesées tout ce que nous croyons.”—Moliére: Don Juan, i. I (1665).

Juan (Don), a native of Seville, son of don José and donna Inez (a blue-stocking). When Juan was 16 years old, he got into trouble with donna Julia, and was sent by his mother (then a widow) on his travels. His adventures form the story of a poem so called; but the tale is left incomplete.—Byron: Don Juan (1819- 21).

Cantos i., ii., published 1819; cantos iii., iv., v., published 1821; cantos vi. to xiv., published 1823; cantos xv., xvi., published 1824.

Byron’s Don Juan and Don Giovanni have nothing in common but the name. Byron’s Don Juan is merely a young voluptuary, of great amatory proclivities.

Juan (Don), or don Giovanni, the prince of libertines. The original of this character was don Juan Tenorio, of Seville, who attempted the seduction of the governor’s daughter; and the father, forcing the libertine to a duel, fell. A statue of the murdered father was erected in the family vault; and one day, when don Juan forced his way into the vault, he invited the statue to a banquet. The statue accordingly placed itself at the board, to the amazement of the host, and, compelling the libertine to follow, delivered him over to devils, who carried him off triumphant.

(Dramatized first by Gabriel Tellez (1626). Molière (1665) and Thomas Corneille, in Le Festin de Pierre, both imitated from the Spanish (1673), have made it the subject of French comedies; Goldoni (1765), of an Italian comedy; Glück, of a musical ballet (1765); Mozart, of an opera called Don Giovanni (1787), a princely work. See Juan.)

Juan Fernandez, a rocky island in the Pacific Ocean, near the coast of Chili. Here Alexander Selkirk, a buccaneer, resided in solitude for four years. Defoe is supposed to have based his tale of Robinson Crusoe on the history of Alexander Selkirk.

(Defoe places the island of his hero “on the east coast of South America,” somewhere near Dutch Guiana.)