Soren Kierkegaard

Evidently it did not occur to Kierkegaard that such a confusion was only
possible because Kierkegaard had managed to copy Heiberg down to the
least detail, so that properly understood his article was merely a skillful imita-
tion, a copy, a pastiche. Kierkegaard’s old schoolmate, the author H. P.
Holst, thus wrote: “In his earliest days as a university student he was espe-
cially attracted by Heiberg’snotion of wit, and it would surprise me very
much if his desire to present himself as an author was not first kindled by
some witty and amusing articles inFlyveposten. I remember how in those
days he frequently composed articles in that spirit about various things, and,
displaying an admirable capacity for memory, he would recite them to me
on the street.”
With this encouragement, Kierkegaard could sally forth under the name
“B,” confident of victory, and he sentFlyvepostena double-length article
“On the Polemic ofFædrelandet,” which appeared in the issues of March
12 and March 15. Over time, the entire affair had become so complex that
Kierkegaard’s piece resembled more than anything else an account of a fam-
ily feud in which, after a while, no one could remember who had said what,
about what, or to whom—and certainly not why they had said it. But Li-
unge was treated to a few more jabs, and Hage was on the receiving end of
a veritable haymaker because he had been so impudent as to have written
that Kierkegaard had of course only written in order to “glorify his own
little self.” Heiberg was very pleased with the verbal fracas, however, and
on March 16, when he sent Kierkegaard “six special reprints” of the double-
length article, he thanked him for his contributions and assured him that
they had pleased him “even more on re-reading them.” And then, wonder
of wonders, he signed himself “Most Respectfully, J. L. Heiberg.”
But this was not the end of the debate. In the March 31 issue ofKjøben-
havnsposten,Orla Lehmann published a “Reply to Mr. B. ofFlyveposten,”
in which he described B as a writer with a “genuinely unmistakable talent
for use of powerful language and spirited imagery,” but whose intention
we search for in vain. Indeed, it seemed to him in fact that “the kernel is
hidden within a very thick shell” and that the whole business was no more
than a “stylistic exercise in the humoristic manner.” Kierkegaard’s reply,
“To Mr. Orla Lehmann,” appeared inFlyvepostenon April 10, and was
supremely dismissive, as might have been expected. For the first time in the
battle, Kierkegaard removed his pseudonym “B” and signed himself
“S. Kierkegaard,” presumably because he was pleased to acknowledge these
playful skirmishes with his actual name.
The day before Kierkegaard’s twenty-third birthday, May 4, 1836, the
affair took a sudden and unfortunate turn when an anonymous writer
printed three articles in a publication he calledHumoristiske Intelligensblade.