that not even Abraham, the father of faith, possesses faith unconditionally:
“And where could I seek shelter,” Kierkegaard had written in his retracted
text, “when I knew or suspected that the onl yman I had admired for his
strength and power wavered?”
Abraham and the Knife: Agnete and Farinelli
If the “a” sections are about an assault on a child, the “b” sections are about
the significance of that assault to the child when he becomes an adult: the
inabilit yto give oneself to another. The frightful consequences of this are
developed toward the conclusion ofFear and Trembling, where Johannes de
silentio retells the legend of Agnete and the Merman. “I have considered,”
Kierkegaard wrote in an undated journal entr yfrom 1843, “examining an
aspect of Agnete and the Merman that has probabl ynot occurred to an y
poet. The Merman is a seducer, but after he has won Agnete’s love he is so
moved that he wants to belong to her entirely. But, alas, he cannot do so
because then he would have to initiate her into the whole of his painful
existence, of how he becomes a monster at certain times, et cetera. The
church cannot give them its blessing. Then he despairs and in his despair
dives to the bottom of the sea and remains there, but he leads Agnete to
believe that he had onl ywanted to deceive her.Thatis poetry, not that
wretched, pitiable nonsense in which everything revolves around ridiculous
stuff and tomfoolery. This is the sort of knot that can only be untied by
means of the religious (hence its name, because it unties all spells) [‘religion’
is related to Latinreligare, ‘to bind’]. If the Merman could have faith, then
his faith might perhaps transform him into a human being.”
Once again, both in its themes and in its terminology, the poetic sketch
about Agnete appears to be rather intimatel yassociated with the retracted
text about Regine, whom Kierkegaard, like the Merman, was unable to
“initiate” into frightful things; this was something Kierkegaard attempted
more and more emphaticall yto make clear to her during the period of their
engagement—when, in fact, the legend of Agnete and the Merman came
up quite frequently.
The person Kierkegaard’s journal entr yaccuses of having turned the leg-
end into wretched, pitiable nonsense was most likel yHans Christian Ander-
sen, because Andersen’sAgnete and the Mermanhad been performed at the
Ro yal Theater on April 20 and Ma y2, 1843. The piece, b ythen almost
ten years old, was a flop.
In his new version of the legend, Johannes de silentio frees himself from
ever ytrace of saccharinit yand chooses instead to emphasize the Merman’s