and which had come b yits name honestl y: Its contributors included such
established talents as Mynster, Martensen, Holst, Hertz, Rasmus Nielsen,
and A. P. Adler, all of whom, as time went on, were to run afoul of Kierke-
gaard. With the cynical acuity of vision that characterizes profound bitter-
ness, Kierkegaard noted in his journal: “The Lord bless th ycoming in, Prof.
Heiberg! I will surel ysee to th ygoing out.”
A series of journal entries in which the budding writer attempted, with
varying success, to ironize his way out of his wounded vanity makes it clear
that his “thank-you” was far from being the end of the affair. Indeed, he
was propelled into an entirel ynew genre, the satirical song, in which he
wrote two genuinel yperfidious lines that deserve to be printed in their
entirety:
Prof. Heiberg is a phon yfellow.
Vitta-vit-vit-boom-boom.Embittered as he was about Heiberg’s critique, Kierkegaard scarcel yseems
to have noticed that other reviewers were givingEither/Orall the notice
the ycould muster. As earl yas March 10, 1843, Goldschmidt made merr y
inThe Corsairabout all the attention that had been lavished on the book—
and especiall yabout its bulk: “The entire press, fromDagentoAftenbladet,
fromBerlingsketoIntelligensbladene, let out a cr yof amazement, said a few
words about it, of course, but began and ended b ysa ying ‘M ygoodness,
what a thick book.’ ” And Goldschmidt hadn’t seen the whole of it. On
five successive Sunda yeditions, from March 12 to April 9, an anon ymous
writer forForpostenproduced “Fragments of a Correspondence,” which
dedicated nearl ytwent y-two large columns to a detailed discussion of the
work. True, the reviewer’s profundit ywas not exactl yproportionate to the
enormous quantit yof printer’s ink expended, but in an ycase Kierkegaard
could not complain about a lack of attention. Or sympathy. Indeed, the
reviewer did all he could to rehabilitate Kierkegaard, directing his sarcasm at
the anonymous “one” Heiberg had used in presenting his views.Forposten’s
reviewer was critical, in particular, of Heiberg’s critique of “The Seducer’s
Diary.” The diary (according to said reviewer) was to be understood as the
“reproduction” of an aesthetic “life view” and as such it was “a work of
art”: “ ‘One’ will surel ynot den ythat Goethe’sFaustis such a work, and
in the present case isn’t the idea related to Goethe’s? To those who might
be tempted to believe that the yare reading a true stor y, I will simpl ypoint
out that the piece is titled ‘The Seducer’s,’ not ‘A Seducer’s’ Diary; this is
in itself sufficient to impl ythat the entire piece is a problem, a thought
experiment.” Kierkegaard welcomed these last lines. In his own cop yof
Either/Orhe underlined “The” in “TheSeducer’s Diary,” and in the margin