Kierkegaard's Writings, XIII by Kierkegaard Søren; Hong Edna H.; Hong Howard V

Kierkegaard's Writings, XIII by Kierkegaard Søren; Hong Edna H.; Hong Howard V

Author:Kierkegaard, Søren; Hong, Edna H.; Hong, Howard V. [Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 1982-09-14T16:00:00+00:00


The Corsair Affair

DRAFTS OF WRITINGS FOR POSSIBLE PUBLICATION

A Request to The Corsair267

Sing sang resches Tubalcain—which translated means: Cruel and bloodthirsty Corsair, high and mighty Sultan, you who hold the lives of men like a plaything in your mighty hand and as a whim in the fury of your invective, Oh, let me move you to compassion, curtail these sufferings—slay me, but do not make me immortal! High and mighty Sultan, in your quick wisdom consider what it would not take long for the paltriest of all those you have slain to see, consider what it means to become immortal, and particularly to become that through the testimonial of The Corsair. Oh, what cruel grace and mercy to be forever pointed to as an inhuman monster because The Corsair inhumanly had spared him! But, above all, not this—that I shall never die! Uh, such a death penalty is unheard of.* I get weary of life just to read it. What a cruel honor and distinction to have no one be moved by my womanly wailing: This will kill me, this will be the death of me—but everybody laughs and says: He cannot die. Oh, let me move you to compassion; stop your lofty, cruel mercy; slay me like all the others.

VICTOR EREMITA

(Here perhaps could be added the words at the end of the postscript to Either/Or,268 which is in the tall cupboard closest to the window.)

In margin: * Slay me so I may live with all the others you have slain, but do not slay me by making me immortal.—JP V 5853 (Pap. VI B 192) n.d., 1845

Addition to Pap. VI B 192:

Have no fear—why spare me, I have no wife to sigh for me, perhaps to grieve . . . . . over the husband you slay, no beloved to feel the drubbing more devastatingly, no children whose tenderness makes the blow heavier for them than for the father—I have no legitimately acquired distinction in society that can be temporarily embittering to see wasted, I have no famous family name so that an entire family will suffer by the attack upon one single member—spare instead everyone who has anyone who perhaps cannot help but feel violated even though the one who is wounded disdains the attack . . . . . —JP V 5854 (Pap. VI B 193) n.d., 1845

Deleted from draft of “The Activity of a Traveling Esthetician and How He Still Happened to Pay for the Dinner,” 46:1-18:

Finally, a wish: [text: would that I might only get into The Corsair soon. It is really hard for a poor author to be so singled out in Danish literature . . . he is the only one who is not abused there]. Yes, Victor Eremita has even had to experience the hitherto unheard-of disgrace—of being attacked?*—no, of being immortalized—by The Corsair.269 No doubt it would be highly desirable that this disgrace to literature did not exist at all, that there be no literary publication making money by prostitution, for what



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