Lothario is an Italian name used as shorthand for an unscrupulous seducer of women, based upon a character in '' The Fair Penitent'', a 1703 tragedy by Nicholas Rowe.Lothario
Dictionary by Merriam-Webster In Rowe's play, Lothario is a libertine who seduces and betrays Calista; and his success is the source for the proverbial nature of the name in the subsequent English culture. ''The Fair Penitent'' itself was an adaptation of '' The Fatal Dowry'' (1632), a play by Philip Massinger and Nathan Field. The name Lothario was previously used for a somewhat similar character in ''The Cruel Brother'' (1630) by William Davenant. A character with the same name also appears in ''The Ill-Advised Curiosity'', a

story within a story A story within a story, also referred to as an embedded narrative, is a literary device in which a character within a story becomes the narrator of a second story (within the first one). Multiple layers of stories within stories are sometime ...

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( ; ; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelist ...

' 1605 novel, ''

Don Quixote , the full title being ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'', is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and is of ...

'', Part One, however the "Lothario" there is most unwilling to seduce his friend's wife and only does so upon the urging of the former, who recklessly wants to test her fidelity. Lothario is also the name of a rakish ex-priest featured in Charles Beckingham's 1728 poem "Sarah the Quaker to Lothario", whose perfidy drives his lover, Sarah, to suicide. It was first mentioned in the modern sense in 1756 in '' The World'', the 18th century London weekly newspaper, No. 202 ("The gay eaning ''joyful, merry''Lothario dresses for the fight").Lothario. Oxford English Dictionary Samuel Richardson used "haughty, gallant, gay Lothario" as the model for the self-indulgent Robert Lovelace in his novel '' Clarissa'' (1748), and Calista suggested the character of Clarissa Harlowe. Edward Bulwer-Lytton used the name allusively in his 1849 novel '' The Caxtons'' ("And no woman could have been more flattered and courted by Lotharios and lady-killers than Lady Castleton has been").

Anthony Trollope Anthony Trollope ( ; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among the best-known of his 47 novels are two series of six novels each collectively known as the ''Chronicles of Barsetshire ...

in '' Barchester Towers'' (1857) wrote of "the elegant fluency of a practised Lothario".R. Gilmour ed., Anthony Trollope, ''Barchester Towers'' (2003), p. 286 and 520 Because of the allusive use the name sometimes is not capitalised.

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{{wikisource, The Fair Penitent
''The World'', No. 157-209
The British Essayists in Forty-Five Volumes. Vol. XXIX. London: 1823. Includes a reprint of the No. 202 issue of ''The World'', November 11, 1756. Male characters in literature Male characters in theatre Characters in plays Pejorative terms for men Seduction

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