very little during his lifetime; he did not even succeed in finishing theTale
of a Danish University Student. Before his death he chose his half-brother,
the poet Christian Winther, as his literary executor, while F. C. Olsen was
charged with seeing to the posthumous publication of Møller’s philosophi-
cal and scholarly work, a nearly impossible task, for everything was jumbled
together in heaps of manuscripts. A tolerably complete edition of Møller’s
Posthumous Writingsdid appear in the years 1839–43, however. Kierkegaard
purchased the three volumes as they appeared and studied them with care.
Later he complained that the editors, out of a misguided sense of veneration
for the deceased, had toned down Møller’s critical stance with respect to
Hegel and Hegelianism: At first Møller had been drawn to Hegel, but in
the end he amused himself heartily by fuming at him—quite literally.
“Sketches of Moral Nature”—Affectation and Self-Deception
On Sunday, April 1, 1838, a couple of weeks after Poul Møller’s death,
Kierkegaard rose early, went outside, and looked at the sky. Later in the
day he recalled the impression: “This morning I saw half a score of geese
fly away in the crisp, cool air. At first they were directly overhead, then
they were farther and farther away. Finally they divided into two flocks,
arched like a pair of eyebrows above my eyes, which were now gazing into
the land of poetry.” Nature bonds to what is not nature, becomes trans-
formed into images, and crystallizes as art.
That evening, a memorial performance had been scheduled for the Royal
Theater, where the actor N. P. Nielsen was to read a well-chosen selection
of Møller’s lovely Danish poems. Kierkegaard attended the event, and the
next day he wrote in his journal: “I was there to hear Nielsen recite ‘Joy
over Denmark,’ but was so strangely moved by the words, ‘Do you remem-
ber the widely traveled man?’ Yes, now he is widely traveled—but I, at
least, will certainly remember him.” Kierkegaard is alluding to the poem’s
third stanza, which begins: “My friends in the Danish summer, / Do you
remember the widely traveled man?” And he kept his promise to remember
Møller, for six years later in the draft ofThe Concept of Anxietyhe wrote:
To the late
ProfessorPoul Martin Møller
the happy lover of Greek culture, the admirer of Homer, the
coconspirator of Socrates, the interpreter of Aristotle—
Denmark’s joy in “Joy over Denmark,” though “widely