Mr. Ole Wadt, active military councillor and formerly a writing
teacher
A fly, who for many years was clever enough to winter with the late
Hegel, and who, during the composition of his workThe Phenome-
nology of the Spirit, was fortunate enough to have sat upon his im-
mortal nose on several occasions.Naturally, we must be cautious in our attempts at identifying these fictional
figures with actual personages, but neither may we forget that a satire loses
its comic power if onecannotidentify the figures, so Kierkegaard surely
meant to make them as recognizable as possible. Mr. von Jumping-Jack is
in all likelihood Heiberg. And Mr. Phrase, von Jumping-Jack’s faithful dis-
ciple, who is called an “adventurer” (that is, a soldier of fortune), is Mar-
tensen; Kierkegaard lifted several expressions and turns of phrase from Mar-
tensen’s review of Heiberg and inserted them in the final portion of his
play. Mr. Hurryson, has a first name, “Holla,” that resembles and sounds like
“Orla,” as in “Orla Lehmann,” while Ole Wadt is perhaps J. F. Giødwad. It
is less certain whether Echo is supposed to represent Henrik Hertz, but it
is possible, just as we cannot completely rule out a certain resemblance
between Willibald and Kierkegaard.
The play itself is rather forgivably sophomoric, with no real dramatic
development from one act to the next. In the first act, which has no narra-
tive connection with the rest of the play, Willibald has left a social gathering,
embittered because his friend Echo had amused those present by regaling
them with witticisms stolen from Willibald himself. Tired of Echo and of
his so-called friends in general, Willibald chooses to leave the earth’s surface,
and according to the stage directions he soon finds himself in a “region of
fantasy,” a sort of philosophical utopia called the “Prytaneum,” in which
everything is “arranged triangularly,” thus providing visual representations
of the triads in Hegel’s philosophy. Ole Wadt and Holla Hurryson are ar-
guing heatedly about “national issues” but soon lose themselves in elegant—
or inelegant—turns of phrase. Messrs. von Jumping-Jack and Phrase con-
sider entering into a partnership with Hurryson in order to make the results
of scholarship accessible to the general public. As Phrase puts it, “the devel-
opments of our times ought to gain in extensity what they lose in intensity.”
Von Jumping-Jack is skeptical, however, though as he pompously insists,
his doubts are “by no means popular”: “It is not a doubt about this or that,
about one thing or another—no, it is an infinite doubt.” And to make sure
that no one has any doubts about the sort of doubt in question, he para-
phrases passages from Martensen’s review of Heiberg’sIntroductory Lecture,
making a complete hash of its philosophical jargon. The famous phrase “de