About the Author
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, was born on May 5, 1813, to an affluent family in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was educated at the School of Civic Virtue, before entering the University of Copenhagen. Showing no clearly focused academic interests in the seven years he spent there, but reading widely and recording his thoughts in journals, he gained a reputation for both academic brilliance and an extravagant social life. In 1841, after breaking off an engagement with his then fiancée, Regine Olsen, Kierkegaard fully devoted himself to writing. Over the next ten years, he would go on to produce numerous discourses and a dozen major philosophical works—including Either/Or (1843), Repetition (1843), Fear and Trembling (1843), Philosophical Crumbs (1844), The Concept of Anxiety (1844), Stages on Life’s Way (1845), Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), and The Sickness Unto Death (1849)—many of which, like these, were written pseudonymously. During this period, however, Kierkegaard had not only begun to openly criticize the Danish State Church but he also provoked a sustained feud with the Corsair, a satirical Danish weekly. As a result, Kierkegaard became an object of public ridicule. While few mourned his death in the autumn of 1855, during the early twentieth century his body of work underwent a renaissance and became a major force in shaping modern Protestant theology and existentialism. Today, Kierkegaard is widely considered to be the father of both existentialism as well as modern psychology and has attracted increased attention from academics in a wide range of disciplines.