Soren Kierkegaard

and was wounded b ythis “impertinent and dandified review”—Heiberg’s
“little slap”—it was in part because he had regarded himself as a loyal aes-
thetician of the Heiberg school. Kierkegaard’s attack on Andersen had been,
among other things, a tactical move to curr yfavor with Heiberg, just as he
had also made overtures in his dissertation on irony, the final pages of which
mention Heiberg b yname in the compan yof no one less than Goethe
himself. Kierkegaard had also expressed his veneration privately. When a
little pseudonymous piece,Johan Ludvig Heiberg after Death, was published
in 1842, Kierkegaard had made it known to Hans Brøchner that he was
displeased at seeing Heiberg made the object of facetious comments, and
he warml yinsisted on Heiberg’s importance as his “generation’s aesthetic
educator.” Nor had Heiberg been shortchanged inEither/Or; on the con-
trary, he was accorded an especially prominent place: An entire treatise is
dedicated to an analysis of Scribe’s one-act playThe First Love, in Heiberg’s
translation. Heiberg’s retelling of Moliere’sDon Juanis emphasized at the expense of Moliere’s version. Heiberg is praised for having “the sure aes-
thetic eye” with which he always “understands his task, the taste with which
he knows how to make distinctions.” Indeed, in Heiberg the comic element
is “purer than it is in Molie`re,” which is largel yowing to “Heiberg’s eas y,
flowing verse.” Kierkegaard did not limit himself to praising the genius of
Heiberg alone—the poet’s brilliant consort, the entire national theater, and
Heiberg’s favorites were included in his homage: “If I wanted to show a
foreigner our theater in all its glory, I would say, ‘Go and seeThe First
Love.’ In Mrs. Heiberg, Frydendahl, Stage, and Phister, the Danish theater
possesses a quartet who here manifest themselves in all their splendor.”
It would have been difficult for Kierkegaard to have expressed greater
praise without having it begin to look like sheer pandering. And then Hei-
berg reacted as he did, mocking the work in which he himself was deified.
Who did he think he was?
Therefore, four days after Heiberg’s nefarious winter seed, Victor Ere-
mita published a rejoinder inFædrelandet, entitled “Thank-You to Professor
Heiberg.” Heiberg was thanked in rather strident tones for having shown
so satisfactoril yhow “one” readsEither/Or. Thus, “with the assistance of
the ‘categor yof winter seed,’ Heiberg has helpedEither/Orthrough a suc-
cessful birth and into a thriving life in the world of literature.” It was almost
inconceivable that Victor Eremita, the conquering hermit, could have au-
thored such a tactless thank- you, and it was equall yobvious that ever yhope
of a tolerable (not to mention a favorable) relationship with Heiberg and
his circle was now completel yout of the question. Kierkegaard had in effect
opened hostilities with the coterie associated withIntelligensblade, which was
published as four small pamphlets between March 1842 and March 1844,