Soren Kierkegaard

take it upon himself in faith—that he cannot do. That is, in the final analysis
he does not want to—or, at this point his self terminates in obscurity.”
Perhaps the self-portrait terminates in this sort of obscurity as well, be-
cause, as mentioned, in this analysis Kierkegaard distanced himself some-
what from the poet he portrays, and the self-understanding of the portrayer
is greater than that of the portrayed. Of course, this does not mean that in
1848 Kierkegaard had outrun all his demons, but by then he had acquired
more penetrating insight into demonic cunning and had summed up the
dilemma of the religious poet in a psychological formula: “His conflict is
really this: Has he really had a call? Is the thorn in the flesh the sign that he
is to be used for the extraordinary? Before God, is it entirely in order for
him to be the extraordinary one he has become? Or is the thorn in the
flesh what he must humbly accept in order to attain the universally human
condition?”
Thus far Kierkegaard had chosen to follow the former interpretation, but
now he seemed to have doubts about whether he was justified in doing so.
As long as he could explain his suffering as a psychosomatic conflict that
stemmed from a hereditary taint and from environmental strains, his exploi-
tation of melancholia in the service of his writings was defensible, but the
analysis of the religious poet revealed the dubious side of this gambit. For
the melancholia couldalsobe understood as despair, that is, as self-imposed
suffering.
It is worth noting that when Kierkegaard writes about matters that come
close to his own existential problem, he not only becomes a more precise
psychologist, he also employs an intensified religious self-interpretation in
which God no longer functions as the protector of melancholia: Melancho-
lia is anxiety about the Good;melancholia is unbelief, because melancholia is
self-infatuated hatred of oneself; in the final analysis, melancholia is sin, the
sin of doubting the forgiveness of sins. Where previously Kierkegaard had
used his writings to allay his guilt feelings by producing something beneficial
in return—and where previously Kierkegaard not only suffered but also
needed the debasement of suffering in order to keep himself productive—
now, withThe Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard had thoroughly illuminated
the theologically dubious motives that lay behind the psychology of a poet
such as himself. In other words, he now understood that this was poetizing
God into something a bit different.
A journal entry from the period ofThe Sickness unto Deathlays out the
two positions, the old and the new. First he writes: “I must get a better grip
on my melancholia. Until now it has reposed in the profoundest depths,
and it has been kept down there with the help of enormous intellectual
effort. It is certainly clear that I have benefited others with my work and