accustomed to working things out in detail. What is essential for me is the
luxuriant richness of my presentation and that every line is saturated with
reflection. So if I were to give lectures I would have to prepare them as I
do everything else, and therefore I would have to read them aloud from a
manuscript. I don’t want to do that. Doing it any other way would not
satisfy me. It is quite true that by giving a little course I would support my
efforts, gain more acceptance for my ideas, et cetera—for the moment.
Never mind. My ideas will surely find acceptance. ”Shortly after this he
decided to shelve the lectures and to resume his interrupted labors onWorks
of Love.
Nonetheless, the urge returned. Just under a year later Kierkegaard
wanted to offer lectures, and he went so far as to draft yet another little
“invitation ”to potentially interested subscribers. This invitation deserves to
be reproduced in its entirety:
The undersigned intends to offer a short course of lectures on the
organizing principle of the entirety of my work as an author in relation
to the modern age, illuminated with reference to classical antiquity.
The audience I have in mind would consist principally of theologi-
cal graduates or at any rate of advanced students. I presuppose in my
audience a detailed knowledge of my writings. I wish to ask in advance
that everyone for whom this is not the case ignore this invitation. In
advance I also wish to say that these lectures will in no way be an
enjoyment, but will consist rather of work, and therefore I do not wish
to entice anyone. And—as I believe is inevitably the case with every
sort of deeper understanding—this work will at times, when regarded
from the viewpoint of the moment and of impatience, seem to be
simply boring, and in this connection I caution everyone against par-
ticipating. If I am successfully understood, my listener will have ac-
quired the benefit that his life will have been made significantly more
difficult for him than ever before, and therefore I will not urge anyone
to accept this invitation.
As soon as ten have signed up I will start, and I do not wish to have
more than twenty because I wish to have the sort of relationship with
my audience that would make it possible, if it becomes necessary, for
the lectures to become colloquia.
The fee is 5 rixdollars; one signs up with me.There was hardly any great risk that the number of participants would
exceed twenty. Who in the world would pay five rixdollars for something
that offered no enjoyment, but only work—indeed, work that was actually
boring and that even under the best of circumstances would make a person’s