CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 12
‘1848 has raised me to another level’: see S. Kierkegaard, The Point of View, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 207: Pap. X2 A 66 (1849). This entry is titled ‘On the Year 1848’.
‘some of the best things’: 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. S. Rasmussen, Vanessa Rumble and K. Brian Söderquist (Princeton University Press, 2012), p. 144: NB7, 114 (August to November, 1848). In 1849 Kierkegaard wrote in his journal that ‘My home has been my consolation, having a pleasant home has been my greatest earthly encouragement’ – see Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 6: Journals NB11–NB14, ed. and trans. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Joel D. S. Rasmussen, Vanessa Rumble and K. Brian Söderquist (Princeton University Press, 2013), p. 234: NB12, 143 (1849).
‘Conditions are so wretched here in Denmark’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 5: Journals NB6–NB10, pp. 196–7: NB8, 106 (December 1848).
‘it is perhaps my duty to God’: ibid, p. 321: NB10, 105 (February to April 1849).
‘in relation to God as a child to a father (mother)’: ibid.
‘nearly all my life has been so terribly wasted’: ibid, p. 211: NB9, 8 (January or February 1849).
Kierkegaard was sitting in that church on the Sunday when the marriage banns were read: see Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 3: Notebooks 1–15, ed. and trans. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Vanessa Rumble and K. Brian Söderquist (Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 436: Notebook 15, 4 (August to November 1849).
‘The keystone of her marriage is and will continue to be that I am a villain’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks Volume 5: Journals NB6–NB10, p. 83: NB7, 10 (August to November 1848).
‘The moment I die (which I have constantly expected will happen soon)’: ibid, p. 91 (NB7, 20 August to November 1848).
‘What a constant torment it has been to me’: ibid, p. 90: NB7, 20 (August to November 1848).
‘it remains my guilt nevertheless’: ibid, p. 91: NB7, 20 (August to November 1848).
he was ‘already betrothed’ to Christianity: see ibid, pp. 368–9: NB10, 191 (February to April 1849).
‘the Christmas festival’: ibid, p. 192: NB8, 97 (December 1848).
‘there is an infinite difference between her and myself’: ibid, p. 184: NB8, 76 (December 1848).
‘I am constantly re-writing parts of it, but it does not satisfy me’: see S. Kierkegaard, Stages on Life’s Way, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 515.
‘By now I have learned not too need night time in order to find stillness’: ibid, pp. 16–17.
‘Just one minute, my beloved, just one moment’: ibid, pp. 183–4.
‘a plain gold ring with an engraved date’: ibid, pp. 189–90.
He also reproduced word for word the note he sent to Regine: see ibid, pp. 329–30; also Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 3: Notebooks 1–15, p. 433: Notebook 15, 4 (August to November 1849). Here Kierkegaard writes, ‘If she should happen to see the book, what I want is precisely that she should be reminded of it.’
‘June 18th. Midnight. Am I guilty, then?’: Stages on Life’s Way, p. 381.
‘with all my power to remain faithful to my spiritual experience’: ibid, p. 397.
‘only the one who seeks worthily finds it’: ibid, pp. 16–17.
‘He is, in truth, my body’: Encounters with Kierkegaard, ed. Bruce Kirmmse, trans. Bruce Kirmmse and Virginia Laursen (Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 232 – from Hans Brøchner’s recollections of Kierkegaard, written in 1871–2.
‘One would think that Magister Kierkegaard possessed a kind of magic wand’: see S. Kierkegaard, The Corsair Affair, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 274–5.
‘When it is the legitimate leader in Danish literature’: ibid, pp. 24–7.
inspired by the republican and socialist satirical press in Paris: Honoré de Balzac’s Illusions perdues, written between 1837 and 1843, gives a vivid account of Parisian journalism in the 1820s.
the Greek myth of Nemesis: J. L. Heiberg published an essay on Nemesis in 1827. On Kierkegaard’s own interest in the myth of Nemesis, see Laura Liva, ‘Nemesis: From the Ancient Goddess to a Modern Concept’, in Katalin Nun and Jon Stewart (eds.), Kierkegaard’s Literary Figures and Motifs, Tome II: Gulliver to Zerlina (Ashgate, 2015), pp. 155–62.
Peder Ludvig Møller: see Roger Poole, ‘Søren Kierkegaard and P. L. Møller: Erotic Space Shattered’, in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 13: The Corsair Affair, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Mercer University Press, 1990), pp. 141–61; Troy Wellington Smith, ‘P. L. Møller: Kierkegaard’s Byronic Adversary’, The Byron Journal, 42.1 (2014), pp. 35–47. P. L. Møller is sometimes cited as Kierkegaard’s model for Johannes the Seducer: Roger Poole describes this theory as ‘semi-canonical’ in Kierkegaard research.
a review of Stages on Life’s Way: see The Corsair Affair, pp. 96–104.
‘Would that I might only get into The Corsair soon!’: ibid, p. 46.
He met Goldschmidt on the street, and they discussed these literary hostilities: from an account in Goldschmidt’s autobiography Livs Erindringer og Resultater (Gyldendal, 1877): see The Corsair Affair, p. 146.
‘It is really strange that a man does not have control of the book he buys and pays for’: ibid, pp. 132–3 (extract abridged).
‘In the bitterness of that glance’: from Goldschmidt’s autobiography: see ibid, p. 149.
‘My beloved capital city and place of residence’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 2: Journals EE–KK, ed. and trans. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Vanessa Rumble and K. Brian Söderquist (Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 172–3: JJ 143 (1843).
‘Out there in quiet activity, I shall breathe easier’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 4: Journals NB-NB5, ed. and trans. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Joel D. S. Rasmussen, Vanessa Rumble and K. Brian Söderquist (Princeton University Press, 2011), p. 17: NB, 7 (9 March 1846).
‘as correctly situated in literature as possible’: ibid, p. 12: NB, 7 (9 March 1846).
‘in this way I can still avoid becoming an author’: see S. Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, p. 356: Pap. VII1 A 9 (February, 1846).
‘Thomasine Gyllembourg, Heiberg’s mother’: see Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks Volume 5: Journals NB6–NB10, p. 38: NB6, 55 (July or August 1848): ‘then I took [Heiberg’s] mother and celebrated her’. On Thomasine Gyllembourg’s anonymity, see Katalin Nun, Women of the Danish Golden Age: Literature, Theater and the Emancipation of Women (Museum Tusculanum Press, 2013).
Lusard is struck by the bright lights … in Tivoli Gardens: see To Tidsaldre, in J. L. Heiberg (ed.), Skrifter, vol. XI (Reitzel, 1851), pp. 156–8. These translations are by George Pattison: see his Kierkegaard, Religion and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 54–61.
Heiberg’s 1842 essay ‘People and Public’: see J. L. Heiberg, ‘Folk og Publicum’, Intelligensblade 6, 1 June 1842, p. 137. Translation by George Pattison: see his Kierkegaard, Religion and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Culture, p. 65.
‘not for aesthetic and critical readers of newspapers but for rational creatures’: S. Kierkegaard, Two Ages, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 5.
‘I cannot agree with that at all’: ibid, pp. 95–6. The biblical reference is to Luke 23:28.
He thought Adler was confused, but he felt inclined to support him: on Kierkegaard’s relationship to Adler, see Carl Henrik Koch, ‘Adolph Peter Adler: A Stumbling-Block and an Inspiration for Kierkegaard’, in Kierkegaard and His Danish Contemporaries, Tome II: Theology, ed. Jon Stewart (Ashgate, 2009), pp. 1–22.
‘The merely human idea of self-denial’: S. Kierkegaard, Works of Love, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 194.
‘persecution by the mob, the people, the public’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 4: Journals NB–NB5, p. 317: NB4, 62 (1848).
‘a form of evil’: ibid, p. 111: NB7, 63 (September to November 1848).
Denmark’s ‘demoralization’, ‘disintegration’: see ibid, pp. 102–3: NB7: 46 (September to November 1848); p. 177: NB8, 57 (December 1848).
‘I feel no bitterness at all’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 4: Journals NB–NB5, p. 398–9: NB5, 61 (May to July 1848).
in this life his trousers have received too much attention, and his authorship too little: Kierkegaard felt that his writings were ignored: it is true that, whereas Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Repetition and Works of Love were reviewed extensively, other works – such as The Concept of Anxiety, Two Ages: A Literary Review and Christian Discourses – were not reviewed. See Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 6: Journals NB11–NB14, p. 453.
‘because they are envious’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 5: Journals NB6–NB10, p. 197: NB8, 106 (December 1848).
he recalls how Peter responded to him: see ibid, p. 198: NB8, 108 (December, 1848).
‘They must be permitted to trample me down’: ibid, p. 200: NB8, 110 (December, 1848).
He imagines his future readers, ‘who will be able to sit in peace and quiet’: ibid, p. 191: NB8, 97 (December 1848); see also Kierkegaard’s entry from early 1849 on his ‘martyrdom of laughter’ – ibid, pp. 289–90: NB10, 42 (February to April 1849).
‘Dying is the only thing that can clear the air’: ibid, p. 11: NB6, 9 (July or August, 1848).
‘truly unselfish’: ibid, p. 181: NB8, 69 (December 1848).