Lothario is an Italian name used as shorthand for an unscrupulous seducer of women, based upon a character in ''

The Fair Penitent ''The Fair Penitent'' is Nicholas Rowe's stage adaptation of the tragedy '' The Fatal Dowry,'' the Philip Massinger and Nathan Field collaboration first published in 1632. Rowe's adaptation, premiered onstage in 1702 and first published in 1703, ...

'', a 1703 tragedy by Nicholas Rowe.Lothario
Dictionary by Merriam-Webster In Rowe's play, Lothario is a

libertine A libertine is a person questioning and challenging most moral principles, such as responsibility or Human sexual activity, sexual restraints, and will often declare these traits as unnecessary, undesirable or evil. A libertine is especially som ...

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 ''The Fatal Dowry'' is a late Jacobean era stage play, a tragedy written by Philip Massinger and Nathan Field, and first published in 1632. It represents a significant aspect of Field's very limited dramatic output. Though hard evidence is lac ...

'' (1632), a play by

Philip Massinger Philip Massinger (1583 – 17 March 1640) was an English dramatist. His plays, including '' A New Way to Pay Old Debts'', '' The City Madam'', and '' The Roman Actor'', are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and soci ...

and

Nathan Field Nathan Field (also spelled Feild occasionally; 17 October 1587 – 1620) was an English dramatist and actor. Life His father was the Puritan preacher John Field, and his brother Theophilus Field became the Bishop of Llandaff. One of his bro ...

. The name Lothario was previously used for a somewhat similar character in ''The Cruel Brother'' (1630) by

William Davenant Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned bo ...

. 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 world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk of a "plu ...

'', the 18th century London weekly newspaper, No. 202 ("The gay eaning ''joyful, merry''Lothario dresses for the fight").Lothario. Oxford English Dictionary

Samuel Richardson Samuel Richardson (baptised 19 August 1689 – 4 July 1761) was an English writer and printer known for three epistolary novels: '' Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded'' (1740), '' Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady'' (1748) and '' The Histo ...

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 Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (; 25 May 1803 – 18 January 1873) was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secr ...

used the name allusively in his 1849 novel ''

The Caxtons ''The Caxtons: A Family Picture'' is an 1849 Victorian novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton that was popular in its time.Sutherland, JohnThe Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction p. 111 (1989) The book was first serialized anonymously in ''Blackwoo ...

'' ("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 ''Barchester Towers'' is a novel by English author Anthony Trollope published by Longmans in 1857. It is the second book in the ''Chronicles of Barsetshire'' series, preceded by '' The Warden'' and followed by '' Doctor Thorne''. In his autob ...

'' (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.

Notes

Sources

{{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

See also

Notes

Sources