A Short Life of Kierkegaard (New in Paperback) by Lowrie Walter Hannay Alastair

Author:Lowrie, Walter, Hannay, Alastair
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2013-03-12T16:00:00+00:00

THE AESTHETIC WORKS

1841 TO 1845

IN Copenhagen S.K.’s conduct caused a great scandal. He faced it for a fortnight (that being a part of his plan to deceive Regina) and on October 25 he departed for Berlin with the intention of remaining a year and a half in the city which then was the intellectual capital of Europe. He was especially eager to hear Schelling demolish the Hegelian system, with the applause of the Court as well as of the University. On February 2, 1842, at the end of a long letter to Boesen he said: “This winter in Berlin will always have great importance for me. I have got a great deal accomplished. When you consider that I have heard from three to four lectures daily, have a language lesson daily, and that I have got so much written [i.e. a considerable part of Either/Or], and this in spite of the fact that at first I had to spend so much time writing out Schelling’s lectures, which I did in a fair copy, and have got a great deal read—so that one cannot complain. On top of that, all my pains and all my monologues. I have not long to live—I never expected to—but I live for a brief term and so much the more intensely.”

His enthusiasm for Schelling was short-lived. His first lectures inspired the hope that he had something real to say about “reality,” but that hope was deluded, and on February 27 S.K. wrote to Boesen, “Schelling drivels inordinately … I am leaving Berlin and hastening to Copenhagen … not to bind myself by new ties … but to complete Either/Or.” He got back to Copenhagen on March 6, having been away not quite four and a half months. And we learn from Repetition that some part of this time was profitably spent in the theater, especially in the enjoyment of a kind of farce, the Posse, which was then the vogue in Berlin.

The “monologues” he mentions were of course about Regina, and they were the more painful because they never resulted in a clear verdict with respect to his guilt—hence the title which he already had in mind, “Guilty?”/“Not Guilty?” He was not even clear that the possibility of a rapprochement was definitely excluded. He wrote to Boesen, “I regard the relationship as dissolved only in a certain sense.” But it would be possible to return to her only in case she could be brought to understand him thoroughly and would accept him as he was. His introversion made it impossible to disclose himself to her directly, so he had to resort to what he called “indirect communication,” which he affirmed he had learned from “her.” So Either/Or “was written for Regina”—but not merely “to clarify her out of the situation,” as he said with reference more particularly to “The Diary of the Seducer”—consciously or unconsciously he was practicing the sage counsel we find in Hudibras:

With one hand thrust the lady from,

And with the other pull her home.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.