SOURCE: Wade, Gerald E. “The Character of Don Juan of El burlador de Sevilla.” In Hispanic Studies in Honor of Nicholson B. Adams, edited by John Esten Keller and Karl-Ludwig Selig, pp. 167-78. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966.

In the following essay, Wade analyzes the character of Don Juan, concluding that the trickster's lone virtue is his courage.

If measured by its progeny in world literature, El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra is the most important play of all time.¹ Surprisingly, no book of criticism has been written about the play; one may contrast Hamlet, for example, about which many volumes and thousands of pages have been composed. It is true that numerous editions have been made of the Burlador (and none of them really adequate), and certain things have been said about some of its aspects, especially its possible sources. But the...