Soren Kierkegaard

In the first article, where he chattily explains the idea behind his journal,
we can clearly sense that he has Kierkegaard in his sights, and in the next
article he fires away. The author, who signs himself “X,” displays such
agility in his dialectical sallies that for a moment we are tempted to believe
that this is actually Kierkegaard, who has assumed another pseudonym in
order to carry on the battle against himself. But the satire is an order of
magnitude too vile for this to be the case. Thus, near its conclusion the
article declares: “After having read an author who interests us, we generally
tend to form a picture of his personality in accordance with the manner in
which his physiognomy emerges from what he has written....Inthis way
we not uncommonly see a Mephistopheles leap out of books and journals,
though more often it is one or another caricature upon whom exaggerated
arrogance, pedantic affectation, or other such qualities have placed a fool’s
cap.” The article goes on to say that unfortunately considerations of space
do not permit the elaboration of this picture, but this could be done on a
subsequent occasion, “especially if the author, through his continued liter-
ary activity, provides us more features of his unique physiognomy.”
It must have been painful for Kierkegaard to read these coarse allusions
to his body and especially unpleasant for him to discover that somewhere
or other in the city he had a literary doppelga ̈nger whose polemics went
one ste pfurther than he himself could dream of going. And in view of the
fact that the discussion of the “journalistic literature” of the day had been
set in motion by Kierkegaard’s rather condescending attitude toward the
necessity of any increase in freedom of expression, it was an irony of fate that
he himself had suddenly been threatened with reprisals—“a fool’s cap”—if
he continued to publish. In the next article, however, the danger seemed
to have passed, inasmuch as the author did not link his views to Kierkegaard.
But then yet another piece from the mysterious X appeared, and the curtain
went u pon “Flyveposten’s Collegium Politicum: A Touching Comedy in
Six Scenes.” In the manner of Ludvig Holberg’s comedies, the characters
in the play all appear under pseudonyms, but they are easily recognizable,
taken as they are from articles that had appeared inFlyveposten. Many of the
lines in the play are borrowed from this same source, so that passages by
Flyvepostenauthors are placed in their authors’ own mouths or in the mouths
of other characters. Kierkegaard, who appears in the cast of characters as
“K. (ne ́B), an opponent and also a bit of a genius,” is depicted as a faithful
disciple of Heiberg and is called his “amanuensis.” When he appears on
stage—singing!—Heiberg turns to those present and exclaims: “Believe me,
this is a crafty head. He can debate with his antipode and make him believe
he is walking on his head.” Kierkegaard is just leaving the offices ofKjøben-
havnsposten, which he has “given a piece of his mind,” and he demonstrates