Who is the Author of Either/Or
WHO IS THE AUTHOR OF EITHER/OR28 [XIII 407]
This question has already engaged a portion of the reading public for some days. Despite all the acumen applied, there is no certainty or agreement concerning the clues. So the matter is still adhuc sub judice [before the court]29 and perhaps will never go further unless on the occasion of this authorship they complain that the legal right to use flogging during inquiry has been abolished and are able to get it reinstated. In that case, I would not be the sinner against whom they have sufficient moral evidence; even less would I be his back. But the legal right to use flogging during inquiry certainly remains a pium desiderium [pious wish], which in fact every friend of literature must desire, for it would, after all, be a very rigorous way to discover who the authors are.
Far from making so bold as to venture to bring the question closer to solution by this article, I shall merely summarize historically the various investigations that have been made into it. The investigators may be conveniently divided into two classes. Some try to pick up the trail by means of external evidence, others by internal evidence.
1. The External Evidence [XIII 408]
Actually, there is but one bit of external evidence—that the book has no publisher but in all probability has been published by the author. Of course, this unity30 conceals in itself a host of clues to estimates of the cost of publishing. A thrifty, hard-working citizen here in the city maintains that publishing a book like this must cost 30,000 to 40,000 rix-dollars.31 He reasons as follows. It is very expensive to have anything printed. The only thing he has had printed was an advertisement in Adresseavisen, which was only four lines and still cost three marks. He no doubt thinks that it must be taken into account that the cost is on a sliding scale according to the number of lines, but he nevertheless assumes that a book with thirty-six lines per page and over 800 pages in length must cost 30,000 to 40,000 rix-dollars. He is therefore convinced that no local person is in a position to write such a book. His guess is Donner32 in Altona. As far as I know, this citizen is the only one who holds exclusively to external clues; given the certainty that the expenses are so great, he does not pay any attention at all to the internal clues.
Others who know more about printing costs estimate the expenditure lower and thereby are already on the way to following the internal clues. The lower the estimate, the more clues there are. They scrutinize people they know who have a nice little fortune or who have such good prospects that they could easily float a loan. Then, when they find someone who fits these financial criteria, there is nothing to prevent them from assuming that this or that person could write such a big book. In this respect, it is desirable to find out very quickly who the author is, for a situation such as the present one is highly irksome to anyone with money. It is a well-known fact that anyone who owns anything usually makes a secret of how much he owns, but in these times people are on one another’s backs, brother rises up against brother,33 and this may even have unpleasant financial consequences. The city council will have occasion to get a quite different perspective [XIII 409] on people’s assets than it had previously, which can have the result that many who have paid only a 3% trade tax34 will now have to pay 5%, that the church rates35 will be raised, etc.
As a fitting philosophical transition to discussing the researchers who are attempting to ferret out the author by means of internal evidence, I will mention an opinion that contrasts paradoxically with the first one. A government official believes that no attention should be paid to the external evidence at all, since it does not cost anything to get something printed in Denmark. He offers as argument his many years of experience as a public official. But I offer this opinion only to make a philosophical transition. It belongs neither in the section on external evidence nor in the section on internal evidence nor in actuality—actually, it is merely a transition.
It is difficult to summarize the efforts of the many investigators along these lines, but we shall attempt to do it.
The book has two parts. Some read only the first part, others only the second. Since they are significantly different, various readers arrive at contrasting suspicions, depending upon whether they judge the whole book on the basis of the first or second part.
Some read neither the first nor the second part but devote themselves entirely to pondering the interesting question: Who can be the author? From the honest zeal with which they go at the matter, one would think they would quickly discover the secret. But that is not the case. Instead of withdrawing silently and, without reading the book, speculating purely objectively on who the author is, they have committed the indiscretion of consulting others. By this contact they have become a mediation of the earlier differences. Despite their honesty, they arrive at the most ridiculous conclusions, depending on whether they talk with someone who judges the whole book on the basis of the first part or with someone who judges it on the basis of the second part. Just to have an opinion, they assume that there are two authors, all the more so since Councilor Fribert36 has let the matter remain undecided.
On the basis of statements made by many who have read just the preface and say it is very different from the rest of the book, a few people assume that there are three authors. This [XIII 410] circumstance has prompted a small group to outdo one another in bold hypotheses related to numbers. This band also finds itself in a position to solve the problem of printing costs, since it assumes so many authors that the whole thing perhaps will amount to five rix-dollars per man.
Those who probe more deeply into the work try primarily to ascertain the author’s personality from the style of writing and to ferret him out in that way. Et hic diversi abeunt interpretes [Here, too, the interpreters take different positions]. Some assume that he is a young man, others that he is an old man; some that he is a profligate, others that he is a man of integrity; some think him a casual, unemployed man, others think him a public official; some that he is a bachelor, others that he is a married man.
Some pay more attention to the externalities in style, and, being more sensitive observers, they take special notice of the minute details, since they are sharp enough to see that the author has tried to conceal his identity. A theologian, for example, thinks he has detected that the book betrays too much philological education to be a theologian. A philologist thinks he has detected that the philological training is just what can be expected from a theologian, for a philologist would accent the Greek more accurately.
A few—these are the most clever of all—are attentive to a very specific word. They use it in many subtle ways when they are speaking with persons they suspect and watch very sharply to see what effect it has. They no doubt will succeed by using this method, and, as far as I know, they already have had extraordinary luck, for with one single word one of them has trapped fifty authors of the book.
Most people, including the author of this article, think it is not worth the trouble to be concerned about who the author is. They are happy not to know his identity, for then they have only the book to deal with, without being bothered or distracted by his personality.37
A. F. . . . .