Philosophy 43With a theology degree in hand,
no immediate desire to become a
priest in a country parish some-
where, and his father’s money to
support him, Søren threw himself
into writing. In an era obsessed with
objectivity he explored what it was
to be subjective; in an age of abstract
system-building, he called his reader
back to their own inescapable indi-
vidual, concrete existence.
The other figure hovering over
these works is “That Single Individu-
al, whom I with joy and gratitude call
my reader” - a salute to every read-
er, but also a cryptic plea to one in
particular. In 1837, Kierkegaard had
met fourteen-year-old Regine Olsen.
When he proposed in 1840, Regine
was startled, but enthusiastic.
Within a year, despite Regine’s
tears and her father’s humiliating en-
treaties, Kierkegaard had called off
the engagement. We still don’t know
why. “God vetoed the marriage,” he
told his journals: marriage demand-
ed complete openness, and there
were things in Kierkegaard’s soul that
would crush Regine were she to see
them. “I was,” he later wrote, “a thou-
sand years too old for her”.
Though no longer engaged, Ki-
erkegaard still saw himself as spir-
itually wedded to Regine. While
discussing the scandal openly in
his journals, his written works are
also full of barely-veiled references
to it. The protagonist of ‘Guilty?/
Not Guilty?’ in Stages on Life’s Way
breaks an engagement; the antihero
of ‘The Seducer’s Diary’ in Either/Or
documents his cynical pursuit of a
young girl.
Thinking he’d seen Regine nod
at him in church, Kierkegaard brieflyfled to Berlin, where he wrote much
of his masterpiece Fear and Trem-
bling. It’s written in the voice of one
‘Johannes de silentio” (John of Si-
lence), who struggles to explain how
Abraham could be willing to murder
his son Isaac on God’s command
and yet still be “the father of faith”.
Johannes finds in the end for all
his theorising he cannot understand
Abraham - which is of course what
makes Abraham’s act one of faith
and not one of human calculation.
But there’s more going on here.
Fathers sacrificing sons; sacrificing
one’s own happiness and that of oth-
ers for religious reasons that simply
cannot be communicated: this is at
once Kierkegaard doing philosophy,
theology, grappling with his relation-
ship with his father, and trying to
explain the inexplicable decision to
break with Regine.
They say that to understand
the Danes, you need to understand
how the Danish world has shrunk.
A decade after Kierkegaard’s death,MY TRAVELS WITH KIERKEGAARDDenmark lost its southern provinces
to Prussia. By 1872 Danish politics
had taken on the slogan Hvad udad
tabes skal indad vindes: “What is lost
without must be re-won within.”
Hygge, the untranslatable but Ins-
ta-friendly Danish virtue of just-so
cosiness, is not just an attempt to
keep out the dark and cold, but to
attain a kind of self-containment.
Kierkegaard’s Copenhagen, how-
ever, still had, if not an empire, then
at least colonial holdings. That’s
how Regine Olsen, now married to
Fritz Schlegel, found herself installed
as First Lady of the Danish Virgin
Islands. Regine’s anxious, warm, as-
tute, brittle, and occasionally racist
letters home reveal a dissatisfaction
with Caribbean life and a longing for
Copenhagen, for its compact world
circumscribed with fairytale. By that
time, though, the city walls were al-
ready gone, the last of the moat re-
fashioned into a storybook lake.
And her spiritual fiancé was
dead. In 1855 Kierkegaard em-
barked on an apocalyptic literary
assault on the Danish state church,
calling them ‘cannibals’ who sold a
watered-down mockery of the radi-
cally demanding teachings of Christ.
Clearly, Søren now could never take
up that country parish. But he was
also about to run out of his father’s
money. Perhaps it’s for the best,
then, that he collapsed in the street
that October and died, aged just 42,
a month later.
Copenhagen is a capital of grace
and confidence. Yet it is also haunt-
ed, for those who know where to
look, by a strange figure striding
through though the streets, in the
corner of your eye, always watching.To understand the
Danes, you need to un-
derstand how the Dan-
ish world has shrunk.Philosophy 43With a theology degree in hand,
no immediate desire to become a
priest in a country parish some-
where, and his father’s money to
support him, Søren threw himself
into writing. In an era obsessed with
objectivity he explored what it was
to be subjective; in an age of abstract
system-building, he called his reader
back to their own inescapable indi-
vidual, concrete existence.
The other figure hovering over
these works is “That Single Individu-
al, whom I with joy and gratitude call
my reader” - a salute to every read-
er, but also a cryptic plea to one in
particular. In 1837, Kierkegaard had
met fourteen-year-old Regine Olsen.
When he proposed in 1840, Regine
was startled, but enthusiastic.
Within a year, despite Regine’s
tears and her father’s humiliating en-
treaties, Kierkegaard had called off
the engagement. We still don’t know
why. “God vetoed the marriage,” he
told his journals: marriage demand-
ed complete openness, and there
were things in Kierkegaard’s soul that
would crush Regine were she to see
them. “I was,” he later wrote, “a thou-
sand years too old for her”.
Though no longer engaged, Ki-
erkegaard still saw himself as spir-
itually wedded to Regine. While
discussing the scandal openly in
his journals, his written works are
also full of barely-veiled references
to it. The protagonist of ‘Guilty?/
Not Guilty?’ in Stages on Life’s Way
breaks an engagement; the antihero
of ‘The Seducer’s Diary’ in Either/Or
documents his cynical pursuit of a
young girl.
Thinking he’d seen Regine nod
at him in church, Kierkegaard briefly
fled to Berlin, where he wrote much
of his masterpiece Fear and Trem-
bling. It’s written in the voice of one
‘Johannes de silentio” (John of Si-
lence), who struggles to explain how
Abraham could be willing to murder
his son Isaac on God’s command
and yet still be “the father of faith”.
Johannes finds in the end for all
his theorising he cannot understand
Abraham - which is of course what
makes Abraham’s act one of faith
and not one of human calculation.
But there’s more going on here.
Fathers sacrificing sons; sacrificing
one’s own happiness and that of oth-
ers for religious reasons that simply
cannot be communicated: this is at
once Kierkegaard doing philosophy,
theology, grappling with his relation-
ship with his father, and trying to
explain the inexplicable decision to
break with Regine.
They say that to understand
the Danes, you need to understand
how the Danish world has shrunk.
A decade after Kierkegaard’s death,MY TRAVELS WITH KIERKEGAARDDenmark lost its southern provinces
to Prussia. By 1872 Danish politics
had taken on the slogan Hvad udad
tabes skal indad vindes: “What is lost
without must be re-won within.”
Hygge, the untranslatable but Ins-
ta-friendly Danish virtue of just-so
cosiness, is not just an attempt to
keep out the dark and cold, but to
attain a kind of self-containment.
Kierkegaard’s Copenhagen, how-
ever, still had, if not an empire, then
at least colonial holdings. That’s
how Regine Olsen, now married to
Fritz Schlegel, found herself installed
as First Lady of the Danish Virgin
Islands. Regine’s anxious, warm, as-
tute, brittle, and occasionally racist
letters home reveal a dissatisfaction
with Caribbean life and a longing for
Copenhagen, for its compact world
circumscribed with fairytale. By that
time, though, the city walls were al-
ready gone, the last of the moat re-
fashioned into a storybook lake.
And her spiritual fiancé was
dead. In 1855 Kierkegaard em-
barked on an apocalyptic literary
assault on the Danish state church,
calling them ‘cannibals’ who sold a
watered-down mockery of the radi-
cally demanding teachings of Christ.
Clearly, Søren now could never take
up that country parish. But he was
also about to run out of his father’s
money. Perhaps it’s for the best,
then, that he collapsed in the street
that October and died, aged just 42,
a month later.
Copenhagen is a capital of grace
and confidence. Yet it is also haunt-
ed, for those who know where to
look, by a strange figure striding
through though the streets, in the
corner of your eye, always watching.To understand the
Danes, you need to un-
derstand how the Dan-
ish world has shrunk.