Soren Kierkegaard

not dare to express in reality the things I present on the scale on which I
present them—as if I myself were the ideal. I must make an admission in this
connection: I am predominantly a poet and a thinker....This, indeed—as
I was aware, if not as clearly as now, at quite an early date—was a misunder-
standing of the whole of my background. It was a superhuman task that
will perhaps never be completed: for someone with my makeup, my imagi-
nation, my capacity for poetic productivity,alsoto want tobe itexistentially.
Generally the hero or the ethical character comes first, and then the poet.
I wanted to be both: At the same time that I needed ‘the poet’s’ tranquillity
and distance from life and ‘the thinker’s’ tranquillity, I wanted—right in
the midst of reality—to be what I poetized and thought about....Ithad
seemed to me that the world, or Denmark, needed a martyr. I had finished
all my writing, and I actually thought of lending support, if possible, to
what had been written in the most decisive manner, by being put to death.
This—that I was not capable of it—this was where the misunderstanding
lay, or this was probably what I needed to wound myself upon. And now
everything is as it should be.... I remain the unhappy lover in relation to
beingthe Christian ideal myself, so I therefore remain its poet. I will never
forget this humiliation....Idonothave the strength to be a witness to the
truth, who is put to death for the truth. Nor was my nature suited to it.”
Kierkegaard here made the humiliating admission that Anti-Climacus,
among others, sought to compel “Christendom” to make: Using a term
that would later be the focus of an enormous amount of attention, he con-
fessed that he was not a “witness to the truth.” In this case, the distance
from the ideal was indicated by the peculiar circumstance that Kierkegaard
the poetwasunable to realize the ideals thatKierkegaardthe theologianneither
could nor would abandon. The poet of martyrdom would not yield his
place to the martyrdom of the poet, so to speak. And then, as a way out of
his powerlessness, Kierkegaard pointed out the superhuman aspect of his
own idea: Scarcely had he rejected the idea of supporting the maximal de-
mand of the works through his own martyrdom before this very rejection
was interpreted as a requirement by Governance that Kierkegaard continue
being the poet of martyrdom. And so everything was once again (made) to
be as it should be.
Things did not go that easily, however, and as early as May 4, 1849, the
situation had been reversed: “The thing is, I have wanted to be so terribly
clever... .Iwasgoingtogetmyselfasecurefuture,andthensitatadistance
and—poetize. Oh, phooey! No, God will surely see to things. And further-
more, the times certainly do not need yet another ‘poet.’...ThisiswhyI
have sufferedso frightfully. Itis my punishment.I have alsosuffered because
I did not want to bind myself but wanted to be free and shrink back from