Soren Kierkegaard

But the point here is not the lack of proportion between Kierkegaard’s
worried thoughts and the way things actually were in the real world, but
rather that Kierkegaard drewpersonalconclusions on the basis oftextual
premises: He wanted to actualize writings whose basic theme was deeply,
sometimes obscurely, connected to the idea of sacrifice. This is developed
in a cycle of journal entries from late April and early May 1849: “N.B.,
N.B., N.B., N.B. Oh, but how strangely melancholia and religiosity can
mingle with each other....Ihave, however, considered the possibility of
going a step further, now, and of steering systematically onward, step by
step, keeping in mind the possibility of being put to death. The aim and
everything was right....Theconflict was the right one: to succumb to a
mob that is egged on by the envy of the upper classes....Idonotdoubt
for a second—or, rather, I am absolutely convinced—that it is certain that
Christendom could use this sort of awakening....Iunderstand that from
a human point of view this would be the maximal result of my life....
That my life should take the turn it has taken, much less that it should end
in martyrdom, has not occurred to a single one of my contemporaries. I am
the one who cunningly guides the intrigue—and in accordance with my
tactics, my contemporaries were not to become aware of it before it hap-
pened—....Butinthis there is also an injustice toward people; after all,
people are only children, so to permit them to incur guilt on that scale is as
unfair to them as it is impermissible for oneself. Thus I have taken the final
look at my life. Now I turn aside, remaining true to myself and to my
origins: I am, after all, essentially a poet.”
Melancholia and religiosity can mingle with each other in the strangest
fashion, but Kierkegaard and H. H. nonetheless appear to have mingled
with each other quite straightforwardly. For as we can see, the problem
Kierkegaard here formulated as his own personal problem was almost word
for word what H. H. had presented in his essay. There was a fluid, open
boundary between the works published under other people’s names and
the journals written in his own name. And the tone was the same; the
anxiety-laden, fervent, sometimes tragic emotion was the same, just as the
man behind the texts was of course also the same. Kierkegaard realized that
martyrdom was a maieutic necessity, but, as in H. H.’s case, Kierkegaard
had such grave concern for the people who would be permitted to incur
the guilt for such a martyrdom that he abandoned his plans and resumed
his role as a “poet.” And his next journal entry—written sideways along the
margin of the entry just cited, and dated April 25, 1849—was marked by a
sense of relief and deliverance resulting from his decision to back off: “Oh,
God be praised, now I understand myself....Quaauthor I only have to
receive one humiliation from God’s hand,... that is, that I myself must