Søren Kierkegaard

Joakim Garff is Associate Professor at the Soren Kierkegaard Research Center at the University of Copenhagen. He is the author of numerous books and articles and is the coeditor of a project to publish definitive new Danish-language editions of all of Kierkegaard's writings. Bruce H. Kirmmse is Professor of History at Connecticut College. His previous works include "Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark" and "Encounters with Kierkegaard" (Princeton). He is the chairman of the editorial board of "Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks" (Princeton, forthcoming).

"Monumental... Garff's informal voice enlists us in the village of gossip of Kierkegaard's time... [H]is tone helps create a sense of excitement, of caring, of importance, of--locally and cosmically--scandal."--John Updike, The New Yorker "For any reader of Kierkegaard, this book will have a theatrical effect. It is as though one has been listening to a long soliloquy: suddenly the curtain goes up and there is golden-age Denmark. The 'soliloquy' is now embedded in a vibrant and multi-faceted conversation. The book is written with confidence and verve; it has been beautifully translated into English by Bruce H. Kirmmse. If you are capable of being absorbed by the life of one who did little but think and suffer privately, this is an 816-page page-turner."--Jonathan Lear, Times Literary Supplement "A superb portrait of the philosopher that offers drama, psychological insight and social history as well as a guide to his profound, if perplexing, ideas... An assiduous researcher, Mr. Garff has been studying his subject for decades. Happily, he seems to possess something of Kierkegaard's divine ability to express deep insights into human nature with a subtle and aristocratic touch. His masterly biography is a page-turning story and a guide wire into the mind of a philosopher whose ideas, properly understood, will never lose their force or fall out of fashion."--Gordon Marino, The Wall Street Journal "Although some will accuse Garff of revealing salacious details of the philosopher's life--as in the chapters on Kierkegaard's relationship with his fiancee Regine Olsen--this monumental and magisterial biography offers fresh glimpses into the sometimes-tortured life and work of this true philosophical genius."--Publishers Weekly Praise for the orignial, Danish edition: "Seven hundred extraordinarily exciting pages... Joakim Garff's book about Soren Kierkegaard is not just a biography. It is a well thought-out synthesis of Kierkegaard's life and writings so exceptional ... so concrete and rich with perspectives, that it has no equal in literature. Read, read, read."--Weekendavisen Praise for the orignial, Danish edition: "A masterpiece in the genre of biography. It makes history. It will be read as a popular book of the highest merit... [Garff] makes it outrageously exciting to read every last detail."--Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten Praise for the orignial, Danish edition: "What rises from these pages is nothing less than a fully developed portrait of one of the most terrible and terribly fascinating beings in the history of Danish culture... No more entertaining and enlightening novel will appear than Joakim Garff's grand biography of Soren Aabye Kierkegaard."--Information Praise for the orignial, Danish edition: "Joakim Garff tells stories with the passion and artistic effects of a novelist... [He] places Kierkegaard in Copenhagen's Golden Age with such a wealth of personalities, topography, and atmosphere that this might be one of the best books ever written about the Golden Age... This publication ... will be discussed all over the world. It is a great book, really great."--Politiken "Garff devotes much attention to what Kierkegaard's contemporaries thought of him and his writings. Kierkegaard was not the obscure, lonely writer that he himself would have one believe. This is a wonderful book for readers interested in Kierkegaard. It is very well written, well translated, and well organized."--Choice "This is an epic book, and truly a biography of the work as well as the man... This book is a marvelous achievement."--David Wheatley, The Irish Times "The royal road to Kierkegaard is still the oblique road--his own writings--but Garff's biography makes an excellent traveling companion."--Richard Polt, Village Voice "Garff ... obviously has been marinating in Kierkegaard for years... His beautifully written and translated biography is scholarship at its best, filled with witty observations, felicitous turns of phrase, and sharp analyses."--Heller McAlpin, The Christian Science Monitor "As this brilliant new biography by Joakim Garff makes clear, [Kierkegaard] never thought of himself as a philosopher... The appearance of Garff's biography in English is a momentous occasion... He provides a dazzling account of Kierkegaard's comings and goings, his anxieties and hopes, and, above all, his invention of himself as the Kierkegaard that both his time and ours have come to know."--Henry Carrington, Washington Post Book World "Kierkegaard is an intellectual hero of the highest order, and Joakim Garff is his poet. Brilliantly translated from the Danish by Bruce Kirmmse, Soren Kierkegaard serves as a Baedeker to the Copenhagen that Kierkegaard both loved and cursed."--Gordon Marino, Artforum International "In its historical scope and in the richness of its descriptions, Garff's Soren Kierkegaard sets a new standard for Kierkegaard scholarship. It has done more to help us understand Kierkegaard's social milieu than any other biography."--Gregory R. Beabout, First Things "Garff aims [to challenge] those concerned with Kierkegaard's theological and philosophical views to think about the life that produced the teachings."--Richard Crouter, The Christian Century "No one ever played the misunderstood genius with the grandiose abandon of Soren Kierkegaard... In his well-documented, entertaining, sympathetic life, Professor Garff helps readers understand a man who was in many respects his own worst enemy. No wonder Kierkegaard preferred being misunderstood."--Edward Short, Crisis "Garff has a novelist's ability to make great capital from small details, and as a biography in the most straightforward sense--the story of a life - the book is hard to beat. It is a real page-turner."--John Lippitt, The Times Higher Education Supplement "There can be no doubt of [Joakim] Garff's success, and for once the adjective 'magisterial' seems fully appropriate."--Frank Day, Magill's Literary Annual "This is a book worthy of its subject--artful, comprehensive, paradoxical, informative... [A] host of ... questions will be discussed with renewed enthusiasm as a result of this magnificent biography."--Ralph McInerny, Theological Studies "Joakim Garff ... has succeeded, not only in making Kierkegaard and his Copenhagen milieu live vigorously in this truly momentous book, but also in gripping the reader's attention... A huge book about an eccentric philosopher turns out to be an enthralling and exciting read."--Alison Ainley, The Philosophers' Magazine "I shall not hesitate to recommend this welcome book to my students as a textbook to help them acquire the necessary background for understanding Kierkegaard's multifarious, epoch-making authorship."--Jacob Golomb, European Legacy

• Maps xiii Preface xvii Foreword to the English-Language Edition xxiii Translator's Preface and Acknowledgments xxv Part One: 1813-1834 The Little Fork 7 Warping 12 Soren Sock 17 Two Weddings and a Fire 22 Studiosus Severinus 26 Alma Mater 29 Underground Copenhagen 32 The Black Sheep 37 1835 The Still Voices of the Dead 47 The Summer of 1835 in Gilleleje 50 "To Find the Idea for Which I Am Willing to Live and Die" 56 1836 <\P> "A Somersault into the Siberia of Freedom of the Press" 60 Within the Heibergs' Charmed Circle 67 Studiosus Faustus 74 The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars 80 Poul Martin Moller 86 "Sketches of Moral Nature"-Affectation and Self-Deception 89 "Backstage Practice" 95 1837 <\P> Storm and Stress? 102 Maria 111 Bringing Gloom to Rented Rooms 115 "Dear Emil!! You, My Friend, the Only One" 118 Reading Binge 122 1838 <\P> "There Is an Indescribable Joy" 126 Death of a Merchant 128 "The Great Earthquake" 131 From the Papers of One Still Living 138 1839 <\P> The Rich Young Man 147 The Translator 150 "My Reading for the Examinations Is the Longest Parenthesis" 152 A Dandy on a Pilgrimage 154 Part Two: 1840 <\P> Regine-in Memoriam 173 Miss O. 175 From the Papers of One Already Dead 178 The Time of Terrors 185 "She Chooses the Shriek, I Choose the Pain" 190 1841 <\P> On the Concept of Irony 192 1842 <\P> Stark Naked in Berlin 199 "The Aesthetic Is Above All My Element" 204 The Incidental Tourist 206 1843 <\P> Either/Or 214 "A Monster of a Book" 218 Literary Exile 224 Spiritual Eroticism 226 Regine's Nod 228 Berlin Again 229 Repetition 232 "Long Live the Post Horn!" 236 To Become Oneself Again Is to Become Someone Else 239 Reality Intervenes 243 1:50 247 The Retracted Text 248 Fear and Trembling 252 Abraham and the Knife: Agnete and Farinelli 258 "A Crevice through Which the Infinite Peeped Out" 261 1844 <\P> The Concept of Anxiety 266 Captivating Anxiety-Pages from a Seducer's Textbook 270 The Seduction's Diary 277 Oh, to Write a Preface 281 Reviews 284 Israel Levin 288 "Come Over and See Me for a Bit" 292 To Have Faith Is Always to Expect the Joyous, the Happy, the Good 295 1845 <\P> "Big Enough to Be a Major City" 301 "I Came Close to Dancing with Them" 305 "People Bath" 308 "Yes, of Course, I Am an Aristocrat-" 316 "I Think Grundtvig Is Nonsense" 318 Kierkegaard in Church 325 "People Think I'm a Hack Writer" 332 Stages on Life's Way 337 The Inserted Passages 340 Writing Samples 353 Exit Heiberg 357 Postscript: Kierkegaard 361 Part Three: 1846 <\P> Victor Eremita's Admirers 375 The Corsair-"A Devil of a Paper" 376 Comic Composition and Goldschmidt's Flashy Jacket 379 "I Am a Jew. What Am I Doing among You?" 382 Malice in a Macintosh: Peder Ludvig Moller 386 "A Visit to Soro" 390 "Would Only That I Might Soon Appear in The Corsair" 393 The Corsair's Salvo 395 Moller's Postscript to Kierkegaard's Postscript 402 Admiration and Envy: When One Word Leads to Another 405 The Squint-Eyed Hunchback 408 The Great Reversal 411 "The School of Abuse" 414 The Neighbors across the Way 418 "S. Kjerkegaard and His Reviewers" 422 "This Sweat-Soaked, Stifling Cloak of Mush That Is the Body" 428 The Bull of Phalaris 431 "What Does the Physician Really Know?" 434 "For I Have Loved My Melancholia" 437 Adolph Peter Adler 440 The Book on Adler 444 "Confusion-Making of the Highest Order" 446 Saint Paul and Carpetmaker Hansen 448 Exaltation: 7-14-21; 7-14-21; 7-14-21 450 "The Sensual Pleasure of Productivity" 452 Graphomania 457 Rad. Valerianae 460 1847 <\P> "Perhaps You Would Also Like Me to Listen to Your Brain Beating?" 463 The Press: "The Government's Filth Machine" 471 To Travel Is to Write--and Vice Versa 474 "The Air Bath" 476 Either and Or 479 Regine Schlegel 484 "A People's Government Is the True Image of Hell" 486 "This Is the Idea of the Religious" 490 "100,000 Rumbling Nonhumans" 492 "Perhaps the Alarm Will Be Sounded in the Camp and I Will Be the Manhandled Victim" 495 "You Are Expecting a Tyrant, While I Am Expecting a Martyr" 498 God Hates Pyramids 500 Liberty, Equality, and Mercy 502 From the Financial Papers of One Still Living 505 Money in Books 508 "Year after Year, at My Own Expense" 513 Part Four: 1848 <\P> Extravagance in the Service of the Idea 531 "Copenhagen Is a Very Filthy Town" 535 The Sickness unto Death 540 "To Poetize God into Something a Bit Different" 542 "The Poetry of Eternity" 545 To Publish or Not to Publish 548 The Point of View for My Work as an Author 550 "What Hasn't This Pen Been Capable of ... ?" 554 "But Then, of Course, I Cannot Say'I' " 556 In Charge of His Own Posthumous Reputation 562 "My Father Died-Then I Got Another Father in His Place" 565 "I Am Regarded as a Kind of Englishman, a Half-Mad Eccentric" 569 1849 <\P> Dedications and a Rebuff 574 Martensen's Dogmatics 576 A Sunday in the Athenaeum 580 Rasmus Nielsen 582 Fredrika Bremer's Report Card 589 Kierkegaard's Dream 593 The Sealed Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Schlegel 597 "Come Again Another Time" 602 Jakob Peter Mynster 604 "When I Look at Mynster-" 619 Two Ethical-Religious Essays 626 The Will to Powerlessness 627 The Ventriloquist Who Said "I" 630 The Poet of Martyrdom: The Martyrdom of the Poet 632 "Dr. Exstaticus" 636 1850 <\P> Eight Ways Not to Say Good-Bye 642 Moving Days 646 Practice in Christianity 650 "Blasphemous Toying with What Is Holy" 654 The Idiot God-and His Times 656 The Voices of the Scandalized 659 "And Why, Then, This Concealment?" 662 1851 <\P> "That Line about Goldschmidt Was Fateful" 668 Kierkegaard in the Citadel Church 673 Fan Mail 675 The Dedication to Regine 679 A Theological Village Idiot 680 1852 <\P> "She Came Walking as if from the Lime Kiln" 684 The Final Apartment 689 1853 <\P> A Life in the Underworld 692 Nielsen: A Demonic Scoundrel 698 "One Day I Saw the Corpse Bus Come" 700 "The Prices Must Be Jacked Up in the Salon" 702 S. A. versus A. S. 707 "Christianity Is the Invention of Satan" 714 Part Five: 1854 <\P> The Death of a Witness to the Truth 727 "-That Is How a Witness to the Truth is Buried!" 732 "To Bring About a Catastrophe" 733 "A Devil of a Witness to the Truth" 734 1855 <\P> "My Opponent Is a Glob of Snot" 740 Virginie and Regine-to Lose What Is Most Precious 745 "Quite Simply: I Want Honesty" 746 "Therefore, Take the Pseudonymity Away" 749 The Moment 752 "Then That Poet Suddenly Transformed Himself" 754 Out with Inwardness! 757 "The Pastor-That Epitome of Nonsense Cloaked in Long Robes!" 758 The Death of God 764 Grundtvig's Rejoinder 766 "Pastor P. Chr. Kierkegaard, Lic. Theol., My Brother" 769 "In a Theater, It Happened That" 771 "Come Listen, Brilliant Bastard Son" 775 "You Dine with the Swine" 780 Patient No. 2067 781 Postmortem 793 A Little Corpse with Nowhere to Go 794 The Will, the Auctions, and a Psychopathic Missionary 799 The Papers No One Wanted 805 Peter Christian's Misery 807 The Woman among the Graves 810 Illustration Credits 815 Notes 817 Bibliography 845 Index 855