'Un hombre sin nombre': The Mirroring of Language and Nature in Tirso's El burlador de Sevilla

Abstract

This essay explores the role of language in Tirso's El burlador de Sevilla as the major system of social mediation. Placing its validity on the level of the divine, the play's social order centers on the non-arbitrary value of words. Don Juan's language of direct reference to life and nature contrasts with the societal discourse of those representing officialdom, as it shows total disregard for the social agreement about the binding power of words. Both sides, however, maintain an interchange, which defines them, not as opposite poles of the life-society spectrum, but as mirror images vis-à-vis societal rules and conventions. Don Juan and his society model each other's desires and, in the process, they each exhibit the lack in their core.