An Explanation and a Little More
[XIII 418] AN EXPLANATION AND A LITTLE MORE55
Because it is fairly easy even for a merely passable dialectical resourcefulness to produce continuous confusion in the sphere of pseudonymity and anonymity, and because I always must fear being linked with the pseudonymous and the anonymous,56 it perhaps is not superfluous for me most emphatically to disavow the authorship and knowledge of an anonymous article in the Berlingske Tidende, no. 108,* which, with the aid of an imaginative colon right at the beginning and a confusing pronoun57 a little further on, puts me, almost as if by decision, in a very close relation to the authorship of several pseudonymous books. I assume that what is said here is sufficient. Anyone who thinks at all will easily understand the following. If I am not the author of these books, then the [XIII 419] rumor is a falsehood. However, if I am the author, then I am the only one authorized to say that I am that. Any other attempt is, according to the last assumption, unauthorized and as rumor is again a falsehood. In the one case the rumor is false, and in the other case the falsity is that it cannot be anything but a rumor. Furthermore, an unwarranted attempt of that sort is only poorly justified by a little hairsplitting, for to put up as a defense that one has said only what the rumor says (yet more decisively both in form and by its being said in print) is nothing less than a self-declaration betraying that one is aware of doing something forbidden. And, finally, when such an unwarranted attempt is first made now, that is, long, long afterwards, now when not even the most official certainty would be of any interest, the attempt is a tiresome blunder and entirely out of place when done with clever phrasing and out of a desire to make oneself interesting in a newspaper. Assuredly, if I were the author, I certainly would guard against bothering the literary world in such a boring way with such name-declaring at this time, when no one is curious any more and all were tired of guessing long ago.
So far my explanation. The honored pseudonymous authors (one could almost say the Messrs. pseudonymous authors, for the reviewer does not make it very clear how many he means) are handed the flattering recognition that falls to their lot in that one column by Mr. –n. They probably do not agree how to share the booty. At least my thought runs along such lines. Yet what I think makes no difference in the case at hand. And yet perhaps the pseudonymous authors think the same, and perhaps I may even do them a service by relieving them of the trouble of saying something themselves. If so, I would also wish that what I now write may be somewhat more entertaining and may redeem what I may have wasted for the readers by the tiresome explanation and a tiresome mention of my name, a tiresome result of a blunderer’s attempt. So my thought runs along these lines. To be called before the front line of the reading public to be commended—ah, yes! But then it must be the general who does it. If the summoner, for example, is the driver of an ammunition wagon, then both become ridiculous. —To be assigned to a particular category, even the distinguished post of honor59 in [XIII 420] literature, over and above all one’s contemporaries—ah, yes! But then it must be done by a person who himself is not on the outside. For the sake of impartiality, as they say, it may at times be good to be on the outside, but with respect to such a flattering invitation it would be best for the inviter to be on the inside, lest it end with both the inviter and the invited being on the outside and the show of honor becoming a counterpart of the transaction in which the two rogues sell and Studenstrup buys the town hall and courthouse.60
For a newcomer in literature to be received hospitably, yes, almost ceremoniously received, by someone rushing to welcome him—God forbid! But then this must be an authorized person, lest the poor, deceived author, when he comes sailing along in procession, arm in arm with that noble representative of hospitality (alas, his hope for the future and source of his happiness), discover to his shame that he is in the company of a deceiver, that he has drunk Du’s with the executioner.61
To be encouraged to try other directions—how flattering! But then the encourager must be the chief figure in literature. If, however, the beckoning guide disappears like a sneeze, what then? —To hear the seductive words, the royal applause, which benevolently signify that an author should continue his efforts—ah, yes! But then it must be a Maecenas62 who speaks. But suppose that it was only a voting member of literature.
Since, as a matter of fact, that reviewer (what shall one quickly call a person who writes something in a newspaper about a book) is anonymous and thus divested of the trustworthiness of authority, since even in the article he does not project himself as a real general, a grand master, a Maecenas, then it is truly droll for an anonymity like that to give himself such lofty airs in one column and do nothing else. Perhaps there is someone who would find it more difficult to forgive him this puffery than the prolixity he so overbearingly forgives the pseudonymous writers.
[XIII 421] So I find myself thinking as follows. Unwarranted recognition is just as objectionable as an unwarranted attack. Especially today, the former is so dangerous because attempts are made in so many ways to wrest from individual men of distinction, of whom our country can be proud, renown’s right, earned by rare excellence over a period of years, to enjoy a younger generation’s deference and the authority to assign beginners a place in literature, to encourage them with a beckoning call. Yes! When it is the legitimate leader in Danish literature, Professor Heiberg,63 for example, who speaks, when it is a scholar of continental stature such as Professor Madvig64 who speaks, when it is that masterful, most reverend writer under the pseudonym Kts.65 who speaks—well, then a beckoning has meaning, then an encouraging word has validity, then a kind literary greeting is a joy. At least I do not feel older, and perhaps the pseudonymous authors feel just as I do, that it is by keeping up the price of recognition that a person protects himself from becoming ridiculous and honestly does his bit so that the lawful credit due to the older author is not changed into nonsense.
S. KIERKEGAARD