Soren Kierkegaard

matic—which predictably enough does nothing to clarify the situation.
Grundtvig is andremains undialectical, and for lack ofanything better has
chosen to make “the profundity of profound thought ... obvious by fur-
rowing his brow, yodeling with his voice, lifting his forehead, staring
straightahead,andhittingthelow-Fnoteinthebassregister.”
AfrequentlyrecurringpointinKierkegaard’scritiqueisGrundtvig’sre-
markablymodest levelofself-reflection: “Anidea seizeshim.He isaston-
ished,moved.Hewantstoblessallofhumanitywithhismatchlessdiscov-
ery. On the other hand, he lacks the dialectical mobility to inspect
reflectivelywhathehasdiscovered,toseewhetheritissomethinggreator
somethingvacuous.”Whenitwasamatterofbeingabletoascendintothe
dialecticalether,wheretheproblemsreallybecomecrystalline,itwasnearly
as if Grundtvig had been equipped with a “hat of lead,” which was why
theresultofhisstrenuousperspirationusuallyendedupwith“averymodest
la-di-da, la-di-da, la-di-da, whoops!” Kierkegaard’s criticisms were also
twined together with idiosyncratic feelings that revealed profound differ-
ences of temperament. Thus he was irritated by Grundtvig’s knack for al-
waysbeingwheretheactionwasandhispeculiarinversionofnormalchro-
nology: “In his younger days he represented old, old-fashioned, ancient,
primal-primeval Christianity; now, in his old age he is decked out as a
fashionable fellow.” Similarly, Grundtvig seemed to have been equipped
with an attitudinally relativistic ability to accommodate himself to every
situation:“Atonepointhehastheapostolic,saintlyglowinhistransfigured
face;atanotherpointheisunrecognizableinOldNorseshagginess;always
anoisyindividual,godly,worldly,OldNorse,Christian,highpriest,Holger
the Dane; at one point exulting, at another weeping, always prophetic.”
Othersortsofmockeryalsofoundtheirwayintothejournalswhere,amid
muchotherblusterandgrotesquery,Grundtvigistermeda“world-histori-
calrowdy,”a“bellowingblacksmith,”a“hearty,yodelingfellow,”andan
“Ale-Norsewarrior.”Inbrief,“IthinkGrundtvigisnonsense.”
NordidGrundtvigreceiveparticularlyhighmarksfortheartisticimpres-
sion he made. His style, which was visible as soon as one looked at his
printedpages,wasparticularlyirritating.Whenanauthorstretchesoutthe
spacingofletters in a word (oritalicizes, as one does nowadays), Kier-
kegaardexplainspedagogically,itisinorderto“helpthereaderbetterun-
derstand the development of the exposition or in order to emphasize an
individualword,”but“theideaofstretchingthespacingispreciselyarela-
tive one.” For Grundtvig, on the other hand, everything is absolute, and
he “stretches out the spacing absolutely, so that it comes to the point that
itisthewordswhichhavenothadtheirspacingstretchedwhichareremark-
able.”ThingsgetnobetterwhenoneattemptstounderstandwhatGrundt-