Soren Kierkegaard

property: It cannot be summarized, only quoted. When one begins summa-
rizing Kierkegaard’s writings (try to summarizeRepetition) one quickly
learns that its essence disappears because it is intimately connected with the
fine ether of the rhetoric, and in a summary it therefore evaporates. Of
course this does not mean that the writings are merely foolery, devoid of
philosophical and theological seriousness, but they are undeniably a long
way from Hegel, whose monstrous “System” and totalitarian tendencies
Kierkegaard—not surprisingly—early on learned to treat with breathtaking
impertinence. He preferred his own breezy scholarliness, a sort of intellec-
tual anti-intellectualism, whose parodic pressure forced concepts into tears
and tatters. If it is characteristic of Hegel that he situates himself at such a
lofty level of abstraction that readers are compelled to seek relief in the
realm of fantasy and analogy, the opposite is the case with Kierkegaard:
Scarcely has one been admitted for complicated dialectical surgery than one
finds that one has been sent off on a recreational furlough in a piece of
writing that is expressively effusive, full of color, strangely illuminated from
within. There was of course an element of seductiveness in this, and Kier-
kegaard was quite aware of it, although, seductive as he was in a higher
sense of the word, he preferred to use the term “deception”—a term by
which one of course must not permit oneself to be seduced. In 1845 he
insisted, not without reason, that with the example of Aristotle’s rhetoric
in mind “a new discipline ought to be introduced, Christian eloquence.”
He contemplated assigning the project to Johannes de silentio.
In a conversation with Hans Brøchner during a stroll around one of the
lakes on the outskirts of Copenhagen, Kierkegaard asserted that recent de-
cades had witnessed “an almost abnormal wealth in the development of
poetry,” but that the country had “lacked a prose with the stamp of art.”
After a pause—and surely without the least hesitation—he added, “I have
filled this gap.”
This was immodest and entirely un-Danish, but it was true nonetheless,
and in compensation Kierkegaard did a sort of penance for his un-Danish
behavior by writing what is not only the loveliest but also the most untrans-
latable homage to the Danish language ever written. It can be found buried
deep inside the “Epistle to the Reader,” in which Frater Taciturnus comes
to a sort of conclusion of “‘Guilty?’/‘Not Guilty?’ ” “Frater Taciturnus”
means “the laconic brother,” but the name does not correspond to reality,
for his “Epistle to the Reader” is quite voluminous and makes great de-
mands on the reader’s patience. So in his “Concluding Words” it is quite
in order when Frater Taciturnus suddenly exclaims: “My dear reader—but
to whom am I speaking? Perhaps no one is still here.” Since this does not
seem to be the case, he makes use of the opportunity to write as follows: