1842
Stark Naked in Berlin
Despite the fact that the scholarly evaluators found fault with the disserta-
tion’s stylistic pranks, the master of irony became a magister in irony. The
university rules were followed in every detail. An audience that was almost
as learned as it was curious showed up for the oral defense. In Latin. The
show was a great hit at the box office and lasted seven and one-half hours,
though in the middle of the day there was a recess of a couple of hours.
No fewer than nine opponents rose to debate Kierkegaard. Sibbern and
Brøndsted appeared as official opponents. Theex auditorioopponents were
F. C. Petersen, Johan Ludvig Heiberg himself, and older brother Peter
Christian; pluslicentia theologiaeanddoctor philosophiaeFrederik Beck; F.P.J.
Dahl, a former lecturer in philosophy at Christiania University; H. J. Thue,
a Norwegian magister in philosophy; and the theological graduate C. F.
Christens. Sibbern and Brøndsted used superlatives in the report they sent
to the directors of the university two days after the defense: “The intelli-
gence and intellectual liveliness, the proficiency and dialectical skill, which
are so much in evidence incandidatKierkegaard’s dissertation, were also
prominent in his defense of it, and we must regard him as entirely deserving
of the honor of the magister degree to which he aspires.” Sibbern was so
delighted with the dissertation that he not only urged Kierkegaard to have
it translated into German but also to apply for a university position.
By Tuesday, October 26, 1841, when the directors of the university re-
ported that the degree of magister in philosophy could be conferred upon
Kierkegaard, the magister had already donned his cap and, like those imps
whose caps make them invisible, had caused himself to disappear from Co-
penhagen. Peter Christian and Emil Boesen were the only ones who knew
that he was aboard the Prussian mailboatKo ̈nigin Elisabeth, which had de-
parted Copenhagen for Kiel on Monday, October 25, at eleven o’clock in
the morning. Kierkegaard was bound for Berlin, which had long been the
city of cities for every theologian and philosopher who had respect for him-
self and his discipline.
Scarcely had Kierkegaard arrived in his Berlin lodgings—61 Mittelstrasse,
eine Treppe hoch[German: “one flight up”]—than he sent off the first of
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