In the legend, Don Juan is a famous lover and scoundrel who has made more than a thousand sexual conquests. While preparing to seduce the young noble lady Donna Ana, he is discovered by her father, the Commander, who challenges him to a duel. Don Juan kills the Commander and escapes. Later, Don Juan passes by the tomb of the dead Commander. A voice comes from the statue on the tomb, warning Don Juan that he will be punished for his wicked deeds. The statue puts out his hand, Don Juan, fearless to the last, takes the statue's hand, but finds himself caught in an unbreakable grip that fills him with freezing cold. A fiery pit opens and the statue drags Don Juan off to Hell.
Kierkegaard introduces Don Juan not as a person but as an actual principle to erotic love and mainly to the art of “seduction”. He explains there is a major difference between physical and sensuous love and aesthetic pleasure experienced by humans. He goes into detail about why he wouldn’t consider Don Juan a “seducer” but rather a sensuous lover. Kierkegaard even goes as far as in defending Don Juan’s sexual escapades and infidelity because he states “His love is not physical but sensuous, and sensuous love, in accordance with its concept, is not faithful, but absolutely faithless; it loves not one but all, that is to say, it seduces all”. Kierkegaard tries to explain that Don Juan’s love is not a love progressed over time but rather a momentary feeling. He states “To see her and to love her, that was one and the same; it is in the moment, in the same moment everything is over”.
Today’s society may view Don Juan is the ultimate selfish aesthete. Repetition dulls the pleasure of an act, so Don Juan never repeats the act of love more than once with the same woman. Although he never sleeps with the same woman twice, by so doing he continually repeats the act of sleeping with a new woman. He can never enjoy the woman he is with because he is in such a hurry to get
