Licentiousness and the laws of nature

The only version of Don Juan to assert licentiousness by its title The Libertine by Thomas Shadwell, one of the comedies of manners of the Restoration theatre that has been deliberately forgotten.
Solidly anchored in its time, this play is too extreme to deserve a place in the history of English literature. It is no better treated in the history of literature on Don Juan and the few authors or critics that refer to it, dismiss it totally and classify it as a by-product unworthy of interest. It is true that no Don Juan, whether from the 17th century or after, either English, or of another nationality, carries licentiousness to such an extreme and with such provocation.
Young woman doing her hair
(detail) Salomon de bray
1597-1664 Private Collection
   
Thomas Hobbes
 But does it portray licentiousness in the same manner as the libertine philosophers of the continent, such as Théophile Viau or Cyrano of Bergerac ? Or it is rather about a debauchee, without faith or law, for whom licentiousness is only an idiom among others that depicts and summarises his depravity and all its exaggerations.
No doubt that Don John, the hero of Shadwell's play, revels with impunity, pleasure, joy, contempt and disrespect in all the vilest crimes, whether rapes or murders, the two having rarely been committed as frequently in one play. Yet what seems excessive now was not inconceivable for the English at the time of the Restoration, considering their circumstances and the political situation of the period.
Besides The libertine was a brilliant success and seems to have been staged for almost seventy years.
As such a record of popularity inevitably has an explanation, in order to read Shadwell's play in a different light, one must look to the philosophers of the 17th century, and particularly Thomas Hobbes.
   

Indeed, on the eve of the Restoration, English minds are tempted by a need for lucid order and they turn naturally to the philosophy of Descartes.
But if the latter intrigues them, it stimulates rather than really influences them. The audacity of Descartes' method that starts from negations, to which are added his spiritualistic conclusions, do not appear reassuring, nor indeed adapted to the English character. It needs a greater amalgam of realism and utilitarianism, to which is linked the doctrine of experience, in other words, empiricism.
The reluctance of the English genius towards the abstract and closed doctrines, its preference for the concrete and compliance with experience, are henceforth its characteristic features. Compared to Descartes, Thomas Hobbes is more the man of the situation.
The theories of this brilliant philosopher show indeed singular constructions of uncompromising reason and cold realism. His system elaborated before 1660, under Cromwell's regime, is in perfect harmony with the scepticism infused with science that then inhabits the English mind. He even accords the solid support of a doctrine to the atheism and licentiousness of the literate.
In the eyes of the general public it represents the most daring endeavour of reason against orthodoxy, and if it is allowed to develop without censorship it is because it serves the interests of Royalty.

Frontispiece of the original edition
of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651)
- BN - Paris
   

For, according to Hobbes, man is governed by his natural state and he belongs to a purely mechanical system, motivated by his appetites and his desires. Egotism is the only option of moral law until an individual places himself under a master's protection: the sovereign, whose power must not know another law than that of his will, if it is to be effective.
It is therefore understandable that the theories of Hobbes please the sovereign, particularly in this period of the Restoration of the monarchy.
Thus the character of Don John seems to apply the theories of Hobbes in a very precise manner. At the beginning of the play he and his two partners define themselves according to the laws of Nature (act I) :

 Don Antonio :
We live the life of sense, which no fantastick thing, call'd reason, shall control.

Don Lopez :
My reason tells me, I must please my sense.

Don John :
My appetites are all, I'm sure, I have from Heaven, since they are natural; and them I always will obey.

   

In the same way, Don John justifies his attitude to women solely because Nature intended it thus:
(act II)

 Leonora :
Didn't you swear to like me for the eternity ?

Don John :
Why there 'tis; why did you put me to the trouble to swear it? If you women wou'd be honest, and follow the dictates of sense and Nature, we shou'd agree about the business presently, and never be forsworn for the matter (…)In short, my constitution will not let me love you longer: and whatever some hypocrites pretend, all mankind obey their constitutions, and cannot do otherwise.

Furthermore man has no free will, as Don John tells the hermit that he meets; he acts by necessity since reason orders the will:
(act III)

 Don John :
The understanding never can be free; For what we understand, spite of our selves, we do. All objects are ready form'd and plac'd t'our hands; And these the senses to the mind convey; And as those represent them, this must judge. How can the Will be free, when th' Understanding, On which the Will depends, cannot be so?

Hermit :
Stop your philosophy of the devil, and change the course dangerous and destructive of your depraved lives.

Don Antonio :
Change our natures! Go bid a blackamore be white. We follow our constitutions, which we did not give ourselves.

Don Lopez :
What we are, we are by Nature; our reason tells us we must follow that.
John Locke
   
The Duke of Rochester

Through this extreme character, Shadwell only addresses his contemporaries and in particular the nobles who form the majority of the theatre audience of the time. At the Court these nobles lead a life of idleness and debauchery, encouraged by the King. Don John seems to personify one of them in particular: the duke of Rochester, known for his pranks and his satirical mind. At the time the public shows an uncommon indulgence towards dramatists and this play is neither censored nor shunned, on the contrary. It is in tune and in harmony with fashion.
Its excessiveness, almost in parody, adorned with a certain sense of humour allows an estrangement from one's contemporaries. Besides, the play comes from a French author, Rosimond, and has been readapted.
It is therefore only a variation on an already established theme. Finally, it takes place in Spain, a country that is not a friend, and therefore easy to overtly mock by finding partisans in large numbers. Did Shadwell take this type of precaution? This is difficult to say.
Yet, it is certain that his personal leanings are neither royalist, nor Catholic. He even becomes a dedicated whig at the time of the succession of Charles II and he often gives to understand in some of his prefaces, that he wishes to reform the dissolute behaviour of his contemporaries. Is this a moral lesson or a fashionable topic?
The licentiousness of Don John is possibly a scholarly dosage of both at a time in the social history of a country when it is impossible to express serious opinions in any other way .