Soren Kierkegaard

The most horrifying part was not included inThe Concept of Anxiety,
however. Rather, it cowered shamefully in the last of the nine little, colorful
school notebooks used for drafts, and the white label affixed to its shiny
black paper cover cryptically states “Vocalizations forOn the Concept of Anx-
iety.” In the Semitic languages, a vocalization is the addition of vowels to
the consonants, which makes the letters pronounceable and gives the words
meaning. So with his “Vocalizations” Kierkegaard wished to clarify the
meaning ofThe Concept of Anxiety, perhaps to reveal a text behind the text.
Thus as a sort of motto he wrote on the outside of the booklet with a coarse
pencil “loquere ut videam te,” which translates roughly as “speak, that I may
see you.”
In this notebook we find seven undated entries, some of which were
written during the editing of the draft, while others were jotted down dur-
ing the course of making the fair copy. The first of these entries is titled
“Examples of the Consequences of the Relations of Generations,” which
treats figures such as Høgne, a misshapen being whose mother had given
birth to him after having had sexual relations with a troll; Robert le Diable,
who was fascinated by his own unfathomable evil; and Merlin the Magician,
who awakened sexual desire in an innocent girl. In addition there are refer-
ences to “some of Shakespeare’s characters,” though none are mentioned
by name, and finally to “Cenciby P. B. Shelley,” by which Kierkegaard
refers to Shelley’s piece about Beatrice Cenci, who killed her father because
he had raped her. No sooner do we leave this chamber of horrors than we
plunge into the following catalog of vices: “the addiction of drunkard par-
ents passed on to the child / addiction to thievery / unnatural vices /
melancholia / madness that makes its appearance at a certain age.” If we
look further down the yellowish-gray pages of the notebook we come to
the fifth vocalization, which justmightcapture the specific situation in
which some of the entries in this catalog of vices manifest themselves: “a
relationship between father and son in which the son covertly discovers the
root of it all, though he dares not know it. The father is an impressive man,
God-fearing and strict. Only on one occasion, when drunk, did he let fall
a few words that hinted at the most frightful things. Otherwise the son
learns nothing more and never dares to ask his father or anyone else.”
Kierkegaard elaborated this brief sketch in the third of the pieces inserted
into Quidam’s diary, titled “Solomon’s Dream,” which makes free poetic
use of the Old Testament tale from 1 Kings 3:5–15, in which the Lord
reveals Himself to King Solomon in a dream, promising him a discerning
heart so that, like his father David, Solomon would be able to see the differ-
ence between good and evil. Kierkegaard inserts his own dramatic foil into
this pious tale, endowing the relationship of the young Solomon and the