Books by Søren Kierkegaard

Prefaces was the last of four books by Soren Kierkegaard to appear within two weeks in June 1844. Three Upbuilding Discourses and Philosophical Fragments were published first, followed by The Concept of Anxiety and its companion--published on the same day--the comically ironic Prefaces. Presented as a set of prefaces without a book to follow, this work is a satire on literary life in nineteenth-century Copenhagen, a lampoon of Danish Hegelianism, and a prefiguring of Kierkegaard's final collision with Danish Christendom. Shortly after publishing Prefaces, Kierkegaard began to prepare Writing Sampler as a sequel. Writing Sampler considers the same themes taken up in Prefaces but in yet a more ironical and satirical vein. Although Writing Sampler remained unpublished during his lifetime, it is presented here as Kierkegaard originally envisioned it, in the company of Prefaces.

Litteraturforsker F. J. Billeskov Jansen havde som et af sine hovedområder studiet af Søren Kierkegaards værker. Billeskov sigtede i stigende grad mod at bringe solide standardværker ud til en stor læserkreds og dermed gøre Søren Kierkegaard bredt tilgængelig - også for nye læsere. I dette bind, der handler om Kierkegaard som filosof og teolog, er fokus lagt på filosoffens værker: Gjentagelsen. Frygt og Bæven. Begrebet Angest. Philosophiske Smuler. Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift til de Philosophiske Smuler. Tvende ethisk-religieuse Sm?afhandlinger. Sygdommen til Døden. Indøvelse i Christendom.F. J. Billeskov Jansen, Frederik Julius Billeskov Jansen, 1907-2002, professor i dansk litteratur ved Københavns Universitet og prisbelønnet litteraturforsker, stærkt inspireret af strukturalismen. Hans litteraturformidling, var præget af antagelsen om, at litteratur er en æstetisk disciplin i sig selv, og derfor ikke alene skal anskues biografisk, som der havde været tradition for. Billeskov Jansens arbejder kan i denne optik ses som en forløber for den angelsaksiske nykritik. Senere åbnede han op for en mere idehistorisk tilgang til litteraturen. De fleste af Billeskov Jansens studier fokuserer på det danske 1700-tals litteratur. Billeskov Jansen stiftede tidsskriftet Orbis litterarum, og var fra 1967 medlem af Det Danske Akademi.

Litteraturforsker F. J. Billeskov Jansen havde som et af sine hovedområder studiet af Søren Kierkegaards værker. Billeskov sigtede i stigende grad mod at bringe solide standardværker ud til en stor læserkreds og dermed gøre Søren Kierkegaard bredt tilgængelig – også for nye læsere. I dette bind, der handler om Kierkegaard som prædikant, kirkestormer og autobiograf, er fokus lagt på filosoffens værker: Religiøse Taler. Stormen på Kirken. Autobiografiske Dokumenter.F. J. Billeskov Jansen, Frederik Julius Billeskov Jansen, 1907-2002, professor i dansk litteratur ved Københavns Universitet og prisbelønnet litteraturforsker, stærkt inspireret af strukturalismen. Hans litteraturformidling, var præget af antagelsen om, at litteratur er en æstetisk disciplin i sig selv, og derfor ikke alene skal anskues biografisk, som der havde været tradition for. Billeskov Jansens arbejder kan i denne optik ses som en forløber for den angelsaksiske nykritik. Senere åbnede han op for en mere idehistorisk tilgang til litteraturen. De fleste af Billeskov Jansens studier fokuserer på det danske 1700-tals litteratur. Billeskov Jansen stiftede tidsskriftet Orbis litterarum, og var fra 1967 medlem af Det Danske Akademi.

Kierkegaard explored comic perception to its inward depths. He also practised the art of comedy as astutely as any writer of his time. This book shows how his theory of comedy is integrated into his practice of comic perception, and how both his theory and practice of comedy are integral to his entire authorship.

A religious diatribe written from within the Church against the established order of things in a presumably "Christian" land.

There is much to be learned philosophically from this volume, but philosophical instruction was not Kierkegaard's aim here, except in the broad sense of self-knowledge and deepened awareness. Indicating the intention of the discourses, the titles include "e;The Expectancy of Faith,"e; "e;Love Will Hide a Multitude of Sins,"e; "e;Strengthening in the Inner Being,"e; "e;To Gain One's Soul in Patience,"e; "e;Patience in Expectancy,"e; and "e;Against Cowardliness."e; In tone and substance these works are in accord with the concluding words of encouragement in Either/Or, which was paired with the first volume of discourses: "e;Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer, for one may have known something many times, acknowledged it; one may have willed something many times, attempted it--and yet, only the deep inner motion, only the heart's indescribable emotion, only that will convince you that what you have acknowledged belongs to you, that no power can take it from you--for only the truth that builds up is truth for you."e;

Provides direct access to the thought of the many-faceted nineteenth-century philosopher who exerted so profound an influence on Protestant theology and modern existentialism

"e;In the vast literature of love, The Seducer's Diary is an intricate curiosity--a feverishly intellectual attempt to reconstruct an erotic failure as a pedagogic success, a wound masked as a boast,"e; observes John Updike in his foreword to Soren Kierkegaard's narrative. This work, a chapter from Kierkegaard's first major volume, Either/Or, springs from his relationship with his fiancee, Regine Olsen. Kierkegaard fell in love with the young woman, ten years his junior, proposed to her, but then broke off their engagement a year later. This event affected Kierkegaard profoundly. Olsen became a muse for him, and a flood of volumes resulted. His attempt to set right, in writing, what he feels was a mistake in his relationship with Olsen taught him the secret of "e;indirect communication."e; The Seducer's Diary, then, becomes Kierkegaard's attempt to portray himself as a scoundrel and thus make their break easier for her. Matters of marriage, the ethical versus the aesthetic, dread, and, increasingly, the severities of Christianity are pondered by Kierkegaard in this intense work.

Walter Lowrie's classic, bestselling translation of Soren Kierkegaard's most important and popular books remains unmatched for its readability and literary quality. Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death established Kierkegaard as the father of existentialism and have come to define his contribution to philosophy. Lowrie's translation, first published in 1941 and later revised, was the first in English, and it has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to Kierkegaard's thought. Kierkegaard counted Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death among "e;the most perfect books I have written,"e; and in them he introduces two terms--"e;the absurd"e; and "e;despair"e;--that have become key terms in modern thought. Fear and Trembling takes up the story of Abraham and Isaac to explore a faith that transcends the ethical, persists in the face of the absurd, and meets its reward in the return of all that the faithful one is willing to sacrifice, while The Sickness Unto Death examines the spiritual anxiety of despair. Walter Lowrie's magnificent translation of these seminal works continues to provide an ideal introduction to Kierkegaard. And, as Gordon Marino argues in a new introduction, these books are as relevant as ever in today's age of anxiety.

The Corsair affair has been called the "e;most renowned controversy in Danish literary history."e; At the center is Soren Kierkegaard, whose pseudonymous Stages on Life's Way occasioned a frivolous and dishonorable review by Peder Ludvig Moller. Moller was associated with The Corsair, a publication notorious for gossip and caricature. The editor was Meir Goldschmidt, an acquaintance of Kierkegaard's and an admirer of his early work. Kierkegaard struck back at not only Moller and Goldschmidt but at the paper as a whole. The present volume contains all of the documents relevant to this dispute, plus a historical introduction that recapitulates the sequence of events surrounding the controversy. Parts I (Article) and II (Addenda) contain articles both signed by and attributed to Kierkegaard in response to the affair. A supplement includes writings pertaining to the Corsair affair by Goldschmidt and Moller, as well as unpublished pieces by Kierkegaard from his journals and papers. Although the immediate occasion was literary, for Kierkegaard the issues as well as the consequences were ethical, social, philosophical, and religious. Howard Hong argues that the most important consequence was wholly unexpected and unintended: the second phase of Kierkegaard's authorship.

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55) published an extraordinary number of works during his lifetime, but he left behind nearly as much unpublished writing, most of which consists of what are called his "e;journals and notebooks."e; Volume 2 of this 11-volume edition of Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks includes materials from 1836 to 1846, a period that takes Kierkegaard from his student days to the peak of his activity as an author. In addition to containing hundreds of Kierkegaard's reflections on philosophy, theology, literature, and his own personal life, these journals are the seedbed of many ideas and passages that later surfaced in Either/Or, Repetition, Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety, Stages on Life's Way, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and a number of Edifying Discourses.

For Self-Examination and its companion piece Judge for Yourself! are the culmination of Soren Kierkegaard's "e;second authorship,"e; which followed his Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Among the simplest and most readily comprehended of Kierkegaard's books, the two works are part of the signed direct communications, as distinguished from his earlier pseudonymous writings. The lucidity and pithiness, and the earnestness and power, of For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself! are enhanced when, as Kierkegaard requested, they are read aloud. They contain the well-known passages on Socrates' defense speech, how to read, the lover's letter, the royal coachman and the carriage team, and the painter's relation to his painting. The aim of awakening and inward deepening is signaled by the opening section on Socrates in For Self-Examination and is pursued in the context of the relations of Christian ideality, grace, and response. The secondary aim, a critique of the established order, links the works to the final polemical writings that appear later after a four-year period of silence.

“On the way where a man follows Christ, the height of suffering is the height of glory.”So writes Kierkegaard, long considered the father of existentialism, in his comprehensive explanation of how suffering in all its forms is transformed into joy by faith in God. As an integral part of his ‘Edifying Discourses’, Gospel of Sufferings bears witness to Kierkegaard’s transition from a general religious and philosophical standpoint to a specifically Christian one, forming what is now considered a central plank in the structure of his mature thought. In this classic volume, the great Danish thinker brings together elements that show him to be at once a mystic and a theologian, confirming his status as a precursor of the existentialists and a brilliant philosopher in his own right.

Diary of a Seducer records Johannes''s discovery of a girl with the Shakespearean name Cordelia, whom he sets out to control. Intricately, meticulously, cunningly, the seduction proceeds. No detail is too small to escape Johannes. "She sits on the sofa by the tea table and I sit on a chair at her side. This position has an intimate quality and at the same time a detaching dignity." Less erotic than an intellectual depiction of seduction, Diary of a Seducer shows the casuist Kierkegaard in what he characterized as the aesthetic mode. A new introduction by Michael Dirda puts this influential novella into high relief.

For over a century, the Danish thinker Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55) has been at the center of a number of important discussions, concerning not only philosophy and theology, but also, more recently, fields such as social thought, psychology, and contemporary aesthetics, especially literary theory. Despite his relatively short life, Kierkegaard was an extraordinarily prolific writer, as attested to by the 26-volume Princeton University Press edition of all of his published writings. But Kierkegaard left behind nearly as much unpublished writing, most of which consists of what are called his "e;journals and notebooks."e; Kierkegaard has long been recognized as one of history's great journal keepers, but only rather small portions of his journals and notebooks are what we usually understand by the term "e;diaries."e; By far the greater part of Kierkegaard's journals and notebooks consists of reflections on a myriad of subjects--philosophical, religious, political, personal. Studying his journals and notebooks takes us into his workshop, where we can see his entire universe of thought. We can witness the genesis of his published works, to be sure--but we can also see whole galaxies of concepts, new insights, and fragments, large and small, of partially (or almost entirely) completed but unpublished works. Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks enables us to see the thinker in dialogue with his times and with himself. Volume 4 of this 11-volume series includes the first five of Kierkegaard's well-known "e;NB"e; journals, which contain, in addition to a great many reflections on his own life, a wealth of thoughts on theological matters, as well as on Kierkegaard's times, including political developments and the daily press. Kierkegaard wrote his journals in a two-column format, one for his initial entries and the second for the extensive marginal comments that he added later. This edition of the journals reproduces this format, includes several photographs of original manuscript pages, and contains extensive scholarly commentary on the various entries and on the history of the manuscripts being reproduced.

Soren Kierkegaard's 13 communion discourses constitute a distinct genre among the various forms of religious writing composed by Kierkegaard. Originally published at different times and places, Kierkegaard himself believed that these discourses served as a unifying element in his work and were crucial for understanding his religious thought and philosophy as a whole. Written in an intensely personal liturgical context, the communion discourses prepare the reader for participation in this rite by emphasizing the appropriate posture for forgiveness of sins and confession.

Of the many works he wrote during 1848, his "e;richest and most fruitful year,"e; Kierkegaard specified Practice in Christianity as "e;the most perfect and truest thing."e; In his reflections on such topics as Christ's invitation to the burdened, the imitatio Christi, the possibility of offense, and the exalted Christ, he takes as his theme the requirement of Christian ideality in the context of divine grace. Addressing clergy and laity alike, Kierkegaard asserts the need for institutional and personal admission of the accommodation of Christianity to the culture and to the individual misuse of grace. As a corrective defense, the book is an attempt to find, ideally, a basis for the established order, which would involve the order's ability to acknowledge the Christian requirement, confess its own distance from it, and resort to grace for support in its continued existence. At the same time the book can be read as the beginning of Kierkegaard's attack on Christendom. Because of the high ideality of the contents and in order to prevent the misunderstanding that he himself represented that ideality, Kierkegaard writes under a new pseudonym, Anti-Climacus.

This volume provides the first English translation of all the known correspondence to and from Soren Kierkegaard, including a number of his letters in draft form and papers pertaining to his life and death. These fascinating documents offer new access to the character and lifework of the gifted philosopher, theologian, and psychologist. Kierkegaard speaks often and openly about his desire to correspond, and the resulting desire to write for a greater audience. He consciously recognizes letter-writing as an opportunity to practice composition. Unlike most correspondence, Kierkegaard's letters expressly "e;do not require a reply"e;--he insists on this as a principle, while he clearly and earnestly yearns for a response to his efforts. Among his other principles are purposefulness, directness, and the equality of a letter to a visit with a friend (Kierkegaard preferred the former to the latter). Perhaps more than anything else in print, Kierkegaard's Letters and Documents reveal his love affair with the written word.

After deciding to terminate his authorship with the pseudonymous Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard composed reviews as a means of writing without being an author. Two Ages, here presented in a definitive English text, is simultaneously a review and a book in its own right. In it, Kierkegaard comments on the anonymously published Danish novel Two Ages, which contrasts the mentality of the age of the French Revolution with that of the subsequent epoch of rationalism. Kierkegaard commends the author's shrewdness, and his critique builds on the novel's view of the two generations. With keen prophetic insight, Kierkegaard foresees the birth of an impersonal cultural wasteland, in which the individual will either be depersonalized or obliged to find an existence rooted in "e;equality before God and equality with all men."e; This edition, like all in the series, contains substantial supplementary material, including a historical introduction, entries from Kierkegaard's journals and papers, and the preface and conclusion of the original novel.

Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions was the last of seven works signed by Kierkegaard and published simultaneously with an anonymously authored companion piece. Imagined Occasions both complements and stands in contrast to Kierkegaard's pseudonymously published Stages on Life's Way. The two volumes not only have a chronological relation but treat some of the same distinct themes. The first of the three discourses, "e;On the Occasion of a Confession,"e; centers on stillness, wonder, and one's search for God--in contrast to the speechmaking on erotic love in "e;In Vino Veritas,"e; part one of Stages. The second discourse, "e;On the Occasion of a Wedding,"e; complements the second part of Stages, in which Judge William delivers a panegyric on marriage. The third discourse, "e;At a Graveside,"e; sharpens the ethical and religious earnestness implicit in Stages's "e;'Guilty'/'Not Guilty'"e; and completes this collection.

Early Polemical Writings covers the young Kierkegaard's works from 1834 through 1838. His authorship begins, as it was destined to end, with polemic. Kierkegaard's first published article touches on the theme of women's emancipation, and the other articles from his student years deal with freedom of the press. Modern readers can see the seeds of Kierkegaard's future career these early pieces. In "e;From the Papers of One Still Living,"e; his review of Hans Christian Andersen's novel Only a Fiddler, Kierkegaard rejects the notion that environment is decisive in determining the fate of genius. He also puts forward his belief that each person needs a life-view or life for which and by which to live, a thought he explores further in the comic play The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars.

A collection of known eyewitness account of the great Danish thinker Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). It contains accounts, ranging from the writings of Meir Aron Goldschmidt, editor of "The Corsair", to the recollections of Kierkegaard's fiancee.

Presented here in a new translation, with a historical introduction by the translators, Fear and Trembling and Repetition are the most poetic and personal of Soren Kierkegaard's pseudonymous writings. Published in 1843 and written under the names Johannes de Silentio and Constantine Constantius, respectively, the books demonstrate Kierkegaard's transmutation of the personal into the lyrically religious. Each work uses as a point of departure Kierkegaard's breaking of his engagement to Regine Olsen--his sacrifice of "e;that single individual."e; From this beginning Fear and Trembling becomes an exploration of the faith that transcends the ethical, as in Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac at God's command. This faith, which persists in the face of the absurd, is rewarded finally by the return of all that the faithful one is willing to sacrifice. Repetition discusses the most profound implications of unity of personhood and of identity within change, beginning with the ironic story of a young poet who cannot fulfill the ethical claims of his engagement because of the possible consequences of his marriage. The poet finally despairs of repetition (renewal) in the ethical sphere, as does his advisor and friend Constantius in the aesthetic sphere. The book ends with Constantius' intimation of a third kind of repetition--in the religious sphere.

In Philosophical Fragments the pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus explored the question: What is required in order to go beyond Socratic recollection of eternal ideas already possessed by the learner? Written as an afterword to this work, Concluding Unscientific Postscript is on one level a philosophical jest, yet on another it is Climacus's characterization of the subjective thinker's relation to the truth of Christianity. At once ironic, humorous, and polemical, this work takes on the "e;unscientific"e; form of a mimical-pathetical-dialectical compilation of ideas. Whereas the movement in the earlier pseudonymous writings is away from the aesthetic, the movement in Postscript is away from speculative thought. Kierkegaard intended Postscript to be his concluding work as an author. The subsequent "e;second authorship"e; after The Corsair Affair made Postscript the turning point in the entire authorship. Part One of the text volume examines the truth of Christianity as an objective issue, Part Two the subjective issue of what is involved for the individual in becoming a Christian, and the volume ends with an addendum in which Kierkegaard acknowledges and explains his relation to the pseudonymous authors and their writings. The second volume contains the scholarly apparatus, including a key to references and selected entries from Kierkegaard's journals and papers.

While ostensibly commenting on the work of a contemporary novelist, Kierkegaard used this review as a critique of his society and age. The influence of this short piece has been far-reaching. The apocalyptic final sections are the source for central notions in Heidegger's Being and Time. Later readers have seized on the essay as a prophetic analysis of our own time. Its concepts have been drawn into current debates on identity, addiction, and social conformity.

One of the greatest thinkers of the nineteenth century, S ren Kierkegaard (1814-55) often expressed himself through pseudonyms and disguises. Taken from his personal writings, these private reflections reveal the development of his own thought and personality, from his time as a young student to the deep later internal conflict that formed the basis for his masterpiece of duality Either/Or and beyond. Expressing his beliefs with a freedom not seen in works he published during his lifetime, Kierkegaard here rejects for the first time his father's conventional Christianity and forges the revolutionary idea of the 'leap of faith' required for true religious belief. A combination of theoretical argument, vivid natural description and sharply honed wit, the Papers and Journals reveal to the full the passionate integrity of his lifelong efforts 'to find a truth which is truth for me'.