reflection. He fought to achieve clarity for himself, but he was pursued by
all manner of moods and was such a temperamental person that he often
alleged things that were untrue, deceiving himself into believing that they
were the truth.”
Levin’s reminder is important because it emphasizes the capricious nature
of the source materials and indirectly reveals the infinite care with which
Kierkegaard planned his posthumous rebirth. So if one wishes to write a
biography of Kierkegaard, one must come to terms with the fact that over
much of the expansive terrain one is crisscrossing an already existing autobi-
ography. Consequently the danger of being an unintentional collaborator
in writing themythof Kierkegaard lurks everywhere in the materials, as
they provide optimal conditions for uncritical praise of this genius. My task
is more critical, more historical, less reverential. It is my intention not only
to tell the great stories in Kierkegaard’s life but also to scrutinize the minor
details and incidental circumstances, the cracks in the granite of genius, the
madness just below the surface, the intensity, the economic and psychologi-
cal costs of the frenzies of writing, as well as the profound and mercurial
mysteriousness of a figure with whom one is never really finished. Thus it
is my intention that this book provide a comprehensive description of the
Kierkegaardcomplex.
At the same time, I wish to reinstall Kierkegaard in his own time, to
contextualize him, so that he is no longer “that single individual” at whom
one stares through a keyhole in one of Copenhagen’s city gates, but instead
moves again among people whoalsolived in the city in those days and who
were not quite as impossible as we (in part because we have been led astray
by Kierkegaard) have subsequently viewed them. Therefore I have not only
allowed Kierkegaard’s gaze to follow others, I have also allowed the gaze
of others to rest on Kierkegaard. In other words, I have attempted to rees-
tablish the active dialogue between life and writing out of which Kierke-
gaard grew. Indeed, when one takes the man out of the work, one also
takes the life out of it. If along the way my story should take a notion to
document anything, it will be this complex entanglement of Kierkegaard’s
works with his times.
{Preface} xxi