CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 8
nor does he want people to think that he started out as a daring aesthete, and then became a religious writer: see Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 5: Journals NB6–NB10, ed. and trans. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Joel D. Rasmussen, Vanessa Rumble and K. Brian Söderquist (Princeton University Press, 2012), pp. 17–18: NB6, 24 (July or August 1848); pp. 45–6: NB6, 64 (July or August 1848); pp. 56–7: NB6, 74, 75 (July or August 1848); p. 66: NB6, 87 (July or August 1848).
he tries to console himself with the thought of Rasmus Nielsen’s friendship and loyalty: for an excellent summary of Kierkegaard’s complex relationship with Nielsen, see Jon Stewart, ‘Rasmus Nielsen: From the Object of “Prodigious Concern” to a “Windbag”’, in Kierkegaard and His Danish Contemporaries, Tome I: Philosophy, Politics and Social Theory, ed. Jon Stewart (Ashgate, 2009), pp. 179–213.
‘But what is the worst thing about this is that I have managed to get the whole matter so muddled in reflection’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 5: Journals NB6–NB10, p. 24: NB6, 28 (July or August 1848).
‘it is reflection that wants to make me extraordinary’: ibid, p. 19: NB6, 24 (July or August 1848).
Orla Lehmann: on Kierkegaard’s relationship to Lehmann, see Julie K. Allen, ‘Orla Lehmann: Kierkegaard’s Political Alter-Ego’, in Kierkegaard and His Danish Contemporaries, Tome I, pp. 85–100.
‘Modern philosophy is purely subjunctive’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 1: Journals AA–DD, ed. and trans. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Vanessa Rumble and K. Brian Söderquist (Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 230: DD 51 (September 1837); p. 233: DD 62 (7 October 1837).
he was casting about for a new project: see ibid, p. 231: DD 55 (20 September 1837), p. 232: DD 58 (25 September 1837), pp. 240–41: DD 87, 90 (7 and 10 December 1837).
‘Why I so much prefer autumn to spring’: ibid, p. 236: DD 74 (29 October 1837).
‘Again such a long time has passed’: ibid, p. 243: DD 96 (April 1838).
Hans Christian Andersen’s new novel: the literary novel was still a relatively new genre in Denmark in the 1830s, and H. C. Andersen was one of a few authors who – encouraged by the success of translations of Walter Scott’s historical novels – tried their hand at prose fiction. On Kierkegaard’s relationship to Andersen, see Lone Koldtoft, ‘Hans Christian Andersen: Andersen was Just an Excuse’, in Kierkegaard and His Danish Contemporaries, Tome III: Literature, Drama and Aesthetics, ed. Jon Stewart (Ashgate, 2009), pp. 1–32.
the heavy, convoluted prose: Kierkegaard’s schoolfriend H. P. Holst later described Kierkegaard’s prose style as a ‘Latin–Danish’ full of participles and complicated sentences, and claimed to have helped Kierkegaard rewrite the review of Only a Fiddler: see S. Kierkegaard, Early Polemical Writings, ed. and trans. Julia Watkin (Princeton University Press, 2009), p. xxxi.
‘My father died on Wednesday, the 8th, at 2:00 a.m.’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 1: Journals AA–DD, p. 249: DD 126 (11 August 1838).
‘Our opinions nearly always differ and we are perpetually in conflict’: Early Polemical Writings, p. 55.
‘You know very well, said he, that I consider writing books to be the most ridiculous thing a person can do’: ibid, p. 57.
‘an egg that needs warmth’: ibid, p. 81.
‘for genius is not a rush candle that goes out in a puff of air’: ibid, p. 88.
‘A life-view is more than experience’: ibid, p. 76.
‘It is only this dead and transfigured personality’: ibid, pp. 75–85.
he found it ‘difficult to read with its heavy Hegelian style’: see Encounters with Kierkegaard, ed. Bruce Kirmmse, trans. Bruce Kirmmse and Virginia Laursen (Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 28.
‘an individual depressed by the world’: see Early Polemical Writings, pp. 202–4.
Kierkegaard’s preaching was judged to be: see S. Kierkegaard, Letters and Documents, ed. and trans. Henrik Rosenmeier (Princeton University Press, 2009), pp. 19–20 – from the records of the Pastoral Seminary, winter semester 1840/41. On the pastoral seminary and Kierkegaard’s time there, see Niels Thulstrup and Marie Mikulová Thulstrup, Kierkegaard and the Church in Denmark, trans. Frederick H. Cryer (Reitzel, 1984), pp. 107–11.
He focused his critique of Romanticism on Friedrich von Schlegel’s experimental novel: on Kierkegaard’s analysis of Lucinde, see Fernando Manuel Ferreira da Silva, ‘Lucinde: “To live poetically is to live infinitely”, or Kierkegaard’s Concept of Irony as Portrayed in his Analysis of Friedrich Schlegel’s Work’, in Katalin Nun and Jon Stewart (eds.), Kierkegaard’s Literary Figures and Motifs, Tome II: Gulliver to Zerlina (Ashgate, 2015), pp. 75–83.
‘Just as scientists maintain that there is no true science without doubt’: S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 326.
Kierkegaard’s examiners: see Encounters with Kierkegaard, pp. 29–32 – from the archives of the University of Copenhagen.
the magister degree: Danish ‘Magister’ degrees became doctoral degrees in the 1850s.
‘The only thing I can say I miss now and then are our colloquia’: Letters and Documents, p. 102 – letter to Emil Boesen, 14 December 1841.
‘I do not turn her into a poetic subject’: ibid, p. 93 – letter to Emil Boesen, 16 November 1841.
‘In the course of these recent events my soul has received a needed baptism’: ibid, p. 93 – letter to Emil Boesen, 16 November 1841.
‘Whether my soul is too egotistical or too great’: ibid, p. 95 – letter to Emil Boesen, 16 November 1841.
He sent Henriette a sweet, funny letter: ibid, pp. 100–101 – letter to Henriette Lund, 13 December 1841.
‘that her family hates me is good’: ibid, p. 102 – letter to Emil Boesen, 14 December 1841.
In his letter to Sibbern he became a deferential, diligent student: ibid, p. 106 – letter to F. C. Sibbern, 15 December 1841.
the big dogs which pulled carriages transporting milk: ibid, p. 99 – letter to Carl Lund, 8 December 1841.
Wilhelm, aged 10, received an elegant letter: ibid, p. 110 – letter to Wilhelm Lund, autumn 1841.
‘We especially tried to cheer ourselves up’: ibid, p. 111 – letter to Michael Lund, 28 December 1841.
‘just write freely about whatever occurs to you’: ibid, pp. 112–13 – letter to Carl Lund, 31 December 1841.
‘I hold my life poetically in my hand’: ibid, pp. 121–2 – letter to Emil Boesen, 16 January 1842.
‘Cold, some insomnia, frayed nerves’: ibid, pp. 134–5 – letter to Emil Boesen, 6 February 1842.
‘My dear Emil, Schelling talks endless nonsense’: ibid, p. 139 – letter to Emil Boesen, 27 February 1842.
‘An inexplicable presentiment took me there’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 5: Journals NB6–NB105, p. 83: NB7, 10 (August 1848).
‘At some point I must give a clear explanation of myself as an author’ ibid, p. 50: NB6, 69 (July or August 1848).
‘I have been brought up and developed in the process of my work’: ibid, pp. 48–9, 56: NB6, 66, 74 (July or August 1848).
‘How often have I had happen what has just now happened to me again?’: ibid, p. 47: NB6, 65 (July or August 1848).