Certainly Faust is a reproduction of Don Juan. … Like Don Juan, Faust is a demonic figure, but at a higher level. .. —Either/Or, Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard, who had been working up an abandoned project on the three great medieval figures of Don Juan, Faust and Ahasuerus (the wandering Jew) incorporated much of the work he had done into Either/Or.

The literary characters that most influenced Kierkegaard were Don Juan (representing pleasure), Faust (doubt) and the Wandering Jew (despair); he used characters based on them in his writings. For example, both Don Juan and Faust personify the demonic in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, Part One ..