Translator’s Note
These translations follow the standard Danish edition of Kierkegaard’s writings, Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter. A complete reference for each selection will be provided in a footnote at the beginning of its given chapter. Otherwise, I have kept footnotes to a minimum, so as to avoid distracting the reader with concerns that would apply primarily to specialists.
Translating Kierkegaard is, to borrow the phrase, no walk in the park. There is the fundamental challenge of aligning nineteenth-century Danish with twenty-first-century English—a substantial problem in and of itself, made even more difficult by Kierkegaard’s complex (if often alluring) use of punctuation, syntax, grammatical mood, and the like. Among these traits, Kierkegaard’s use of punctuation is particularly taxing for the translator. Kierkegaard was intrigued by how punctuation could influence meaning, so much so that he considered himself a master at pairing rhetoric and punctuation. As he bluntly puts it in an 1847 journal entry, “[With punctuation] I defer to absolutely no one, and I very much doubt that there is any Danish author who can equal me in this respect.” At the same time, however, it must be said that Kierkegaard’s protracted sentences and his idiosyncratic use of colons and dashes (among other signs) can be disruptive for readers, especially for those who are accustomed to twenty-first-century English. As a translator, then, I have been tasked not only with making Kierkegaard’s language as readable as possible for contemporary Anglophone audiences, but also with preserving his distinctive style. It is a delicate balance, to be sure, and I readily confess that some interpretive decisions have been easier than others. Still, since this translation is intended for the general reader first and foremost, I have given preference to linguistic clarity over textual eccentricities and scholarly niceties.
Next, there are accompanying yet significant issues pertaining to Kierkegaard’s sociocultural location and perspective. For example, Kierkegaard’s views on gender roles tend to echo the presuppositions of his own day, though occasionally he does push against patriarchal assumptions in subtle yet decisive ways. Something similar might be said about Kierkegaard’s use of exclusive language. In keeping with the conventions of nineteenth-century Western literature, he frequently uses the third-person singular masculine pronoun (han, or “he,” as well as ham, or “him”) when speaking about people in general. With regard to such issues, I typically have left Kierkegaard’s language intact, lest I intrude upon his text and, perhaps even more importantly, further complicate his already complicated sentence structure. On the other hand, I have tended to render Kierkegaard’s use of the Danish noun Menneske (and its derivatives) as “human being” or as “person,” rather than as “man.” This is, indeed, quite appropriate in Danish, even if its generality at times jars with Kierkegaard’s masculine pronoun use. But this tension was present even in Kierkegaard’s day, and, as discussed in the general introduction, it by no means discouraged Kierkegaard’s contemporary female audience. In any case, one may safely assume that Kierkegaard’s use of han or ham is intended to encourage the reader to think in terms of individual applicability, rather than to limit the content to the male gender alone.
A final complexity has to do with Kierkegaard’s use of the Bible. In many cases, he refers to biblical texts in offhand ways, while at other points he directly quotes Scripture but does not provide a citation. I have chosen not to identify these sorts of biblical references, since they are plentiful and would burden the text with notes. On the other hand, I have followed Kierkegaard himself whenever he parenthetically cites a biblical passage. Even more difficult has been deciding on how to translate Kierkegaard’s quotations from the Bible. Should one simply render Kierkegaard’s Danish into English? This approach would have the benefit of closely adhering to Kierkegaard’s text itself, though, inasmuch as Kierkegaard’s Bible was already a translation of the original biblical languages, it would also have the dubious distinction of being a translation of a translation. Should one use an existing English translation of the Bible whenever Kierkegaard quotes Scripture? This has the advantage of cultural familiarity and linguistic reliability, though, of course, it occasions yet another question about which translation to utilize—a question that remains hotly debated even (or perhaps especially) today.
Ultimately, after much vacillation, I have come to accept that there is no clear-cut solution to this conundrum. What I have elected to do, then, is no doubt imperfect, though I trust that Kierkegaard’s thinking will eclipse the peccadilloes of the translator. First, since the standard Danish Bible of Kierkegaard’s era combined an 1819 translation of the New Testament with an adaptation of the Old Testament from the eighteenth century, it bears a noticeable stylistic relation to the King James (or Authorized) Version of the Bible, originally published in 1611. Hence, in order to preserve these textual echoes, I have basically used the King James Version whenever Kierkegaard quotes the Bible. Moreover, according to “The Bible in American Life,” a 2014 study released by The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), the King James Version remains by far the most popular translation of the Bible in America—a point also confirmed by translation-related searches on Google since 2005. Of course, whether or not this is a good thing remains an open question, and my use of the King James Version is not meant to indicate an opinion in one direction or another. At the same time, however, I do want Kierkegaard’s employment of Scripture to bear cultural resonance, and it seems that the King James Version will best facilitate that aim, even though I have eliminated some of its more archaic features (e.g., its “thees” and “doths”) in order to avoid too much discordance with my translation of Kierkegaard’s writings themselves.
I conclude with a word of appreciation. I have been chipping away at this project for years now, and, along the way, I have received help from a number of people, whether in the form of linguistic insight, methodological advice, proofreading, or just old-fashioned sympathy. Given such wide-ranging support, it would be impossible to list everyone involved. Still, I would be remiss if I failed to mention the following persons: Stacy Barnett, Andrew Burgess, John Cacchione, Nancy de Flon, Josh Furnal, Jake Given, Marty Laird, Vincent McCarthy, George Pattison, and Brian Söderquist. Of course, to mention such excellent colleagues and friends should not imply that they bear responsibility for any mistakes in the text, which, alas, are attributable solely to me.
Notes
See the section entitled “Abbreviations and Forms of Reference” for more details.
SKS 20, NB:146.
More specifically, I have used the Oxford World’s Classics edition: The Bible: Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
See Philip Goff, Arthur E. Farnsley II, and Peter J. Thuesen, “The Bible in American Life Today,” in The Bible in American Life, ed. Philip Goff, Arthur E. Farnsley II, and Peter J. Thuesen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 10.
Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, “The Most Popular and Fastest Growing Bible Translation Isn’t What You Think It Is,” Christianity Today, March 13, 2014, http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2014/march/most-popular-and-fastest-growing-bible-translation-niv-kjv.html.