Abstract

PIZARRO GRANADA, Maite. Don Juan, an Inversion of Demonic Medieval Femininity. Lexis [online]. 2022, vol.46, n.1, pp.315-340. ISSN 0254-9239.  http://dx.doi.org/10.18800/lexis.202201.009.

The amor hereos or aegritudo amoris was a type of medieval melancholy triggered by love rejection. It was caused by women but suffered by men, and it used to show a demonic kind of femininity. Many people would say this erotic conception disappeared, but there is enough evidence to believe don Juan’s tradition could be a different face of the same sort of love. According to this idea, the sinful behavior of don Juan would be a reproduction of the feminine eroticism exposed in the tradition of Spanish amatory treatises. Namely, it would have evolved from being a masculine melancholic disease to being a female one.

Keywords : melancholy; illness; contagion; female frailty.

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