Joakim Garff

Søren Kierkegaard (eBook, ePUB)

A Biography

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

"The day will come when not only my writings, but precisely my life--the intriguing secret of all the machinery--will be studied and studied." Søren Kierkegaard's remarkable combination of genius and peculiarity made this a fair if arrogant prediction. But Kierkegaard's life has been notoriously hard to study, so complex was the web of fact and fiction in his work. Joakim Garff's biography of Kierkegaard is thus a landmark achievement. A seamless blend of history, philosophy, and psychological insight, all conveyed with novelistic verve, this is the most comprehensive and penetrating account yet written of the life and works of the enigmatic Dane who changed the course of intellectual history.

Garff portrays Kierkegaard not as the all-controlling impresario behind some of the most important works of modern philosophy and religious thought--books credited with founding existentialism and prefiguring postmodernism--but rather as a man whose writings came to control him. Kierkegaard saw himself as a vessel for his writings, a tool in the hand of God, and eventually as a martyr singled out to call for the end of "Christendom." Garff explores the events and relationships that formed Kierkegaard, including his guilt-ridden relationship with his father, his rivalry with his brother, and his famously tortured relationship with his fiancée Regine Olsen. He recreates the squalor and splendor of Golden Age Copenhagen and the intellectual milieu in which Kierkegaard found himself increasingly embattled and mercilessly caricatured.

Acclaimed as a major cultural event on its publication in Denmark in 2000, this book, here presented in an exceptionally crisp and elegant translation, will be the definitive account of Kierkegaard's life for years to come.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Seitenzahl: 896
• Erscheinungstermin: 31. Oktober 2013
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781400849604
• Artikelnr.: 56817303

Autorenporträt

Joakim Garff is Associate Professor at the Søren 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).

Inhaltsangabe

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 Søren 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
"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 Møller 86 "Sketches of Moral
Nature"-Affectation and Self-Deception 89 "Backstage Practice" 95
1837
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
"There Is an Indescribable Joy" 126 Death of a Merchant 128 "The Great
Earthquake" 131 From the Papers of One Still Living 138
1839
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
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
On the Concept of Irony 192
1842
Stark Naked in Berlin 199 "The Aesthetic Is Above All My Element" 204 The
Incidental Tourist 206
1843
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
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
"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
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 Møller 386 "A
Visit to Sorø" 390 "Would Only That I Might Soon Appear in The Corsair" 393
The Corsair's Salvo 395 Møller'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. Valerianæ 460
1847
"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
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
Dedications and a Rebuff 574 Martensen's Dogmatics 576 A Sunday in the
Athenæum 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
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
"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
"She Came Walking as if from the Lime Kiln" 684 The Final Apartment 689
1853
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
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
"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