The Don Giovanni Moment: Essays on the Legacy of an Opera

The Don Giovanni Moment is the first book to examine the aesthetic & moral legacy of Mozart's masterpiece in the literature, philosophy, & culture of the 19th century. Scholars address Don Giovanni's impact on the philosophical visions of Kierkegaard, Goethe, & Williams & its influence on the literary and dramatic works of Pushkin, Hoffmann, Mörike, Byron, Wagner, Strauss, & Shaw. Through a close & careful analysis of the opera's literary & philosophical reception & its many appropriations, rewritings, & retellings, these contributors treat Don Giovanni as a vantage point from which theory & philosophy can reconsider romanticism's central themes. As lively and passionate as the opera itself, these essays are a spirited contribution to the debate over the meaning, character, & powerful legacy of this remarkable work of art.
Mozart's Don Giovanni is an operatic masterpiece full of iconic & mythical tensions that still resonate today. The work redefines the terms of power, seduction, & morality, & the resulting conflict between the aesthetic & the ethical is deeply rooted in the Enlightenment and romanticism.
The Don Giovanni Moment is the first book to examine the aesthetic and moral legacy of Mozart's opera in the literature, philosophy, & culture of the 19th century. The prominent scholars in this collection address the opera's impact on the philosophical visions of Kierkegaard, Goethe, & Williams and its influence on the literary and dramatic works of Pushkin, Hoffmann, Mörike, Byron, Wagner, Strauss, & Shaw. Through a close & careful analysis of Don Giovanni's literary & philosophical reception & its many appropriations, rewritings, & retellings, these contributors treat the opera as a vantage point from which theory & philosophy can reconsider romanticism's central themes.
As lively & passionate as the opera itself, these essays continue the spirited debate over the meani