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Neft's
Homage
To
Søren
Kierkegaard
ÅRHUS CITY KINGDOM OF DENMARK
Latest update 08-JAN-2008 (ver. 7.73)
© Edited and owned by Flemming Ravn Neft, M.A. & B.A.
(Mail me).
ALL texts have been translated from Danish into English by myself.
Human beings consist of Spirit.
But what is Spirit? Spirit is Self.
And what is Self?
Self is a relationship which relates to itself (...)
Self is not the relationship as such,
yet the point that the entity relates to itself.
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BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
(1813-1855)
The contents of the following biography are based on an article of late professor at the University of Copenhagen dr.phil. Frithiof Brandt,
in "Illustreret Dansk Konversations Leksikon" (bind 12), an encyclopaedia edited by Berlingske Forlag in Copenhagen 1935.
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, aesthetician, poet, philosopher and religious writer,
founder of the so-called existential tradition within modern philosophy and Protestant theology.
He was born in 1813 as the youngest of seven children. When he was born, his father was 56 years old, his
mother 45. Even though Søren Kierkegaard only lived onto his 42nd year, and even though his life
was not rich on outer events, the history of his life and his writing activities
as a whole seem to have been of an extraordinary drama and abundance. This may be due to the fact
that even quite ordinary experiences very often took overwhelming dimensions in his thought and
feeling because of his high strung, passionate, imaginative, and introvert mind.
Both of his parents stemmed from the town of Sædding near Ringkøbing in the Western part of Denmark's
peninsula Jutland.
[Correction: Actually, only the father stemmed from Sædding; the mother
stemmed from Brandlund near Brande, in the middle of
Jutland].
The father moved to Copenhagen when he was around 12 years. There he opened a shop for
clothing and became wealthy. He was a highly gifted man, strongly concerned by
spiritual affairs. His weltanschauung was rather obscure, and,
in a patriarchal manor, he brought up his children within a rigid atmosphere of
Lutheran Christendom. From his father, Søren Kierkegaard is said to have inherited his
eminent spiritual gifts, his piercing intellect, his passionate imagination as well as his
poignant periodical melancholy, which was accompanied by a strong consciousness of sin and
guilt. From his mother, Søren Kierkegaard is said to have inherited more brighter sides
of his mind; since her dominant character traits were cheerfulness, and caring and friendly
manners.
In 1830 Kierkegaard finished high school at the age of 17. He began to study theology,
but had difficult to remain within a limited area of study. Quite early
he was influenced by a strong personal urge of growth and also found himself in spiritual
crises, which culminated in the Summer of 1835. He felt insecure with regard to
his determination in Life, and was occupied by considerations about Life view.
He was an idealist and searched for thee idea for which he would live and die.
The search for weltanschauung and personal conviction remained his main preoccupation
during the rest of his Life. Already as a young man, his reading of books was quite extensive,
including many areas and topics. To a high degree, he was influenced by the Epoch of
Romanticism, then ongoing in Germany, for example the religious writer, Hamann.
The death of his father in 1838 was a direct reason why Kierkeaard decided to pull himself
together and finally finish his studies. So in 1840 he finally graduated as a Major in
theology after ten years of study.
Kierkegaard's univerisity years are, by many scholars, considered to have been of great importance for his spiritual
development. Through crises and long periods of melancholy, alternating also with periods in high spirits and
of joy, his peculiar nature matured. In September 1840, a few months after his graduation, Kierkegaard became
engaged with Regine Olsen, an enchanting young woman, daughter of an MP. At that time, he
had known and dreamt about this beautiful woman for several years. She was 17 years old and he was 27, at the engagement.
But only the very day after, he understood that he had done wrong in becoming engaged. He was
overwhelmed by a melancholy of doubt and preoccupations whether if at all he was capable of going
through with the engagement and thus become married. At times, he was quite hopeful, yet the
doubt and the awareness of sin carried him away, and after one year, he definitively broke the
engagement. Later, Kierkegaard used his romantic history in his writings. Regine Olsen was later
happily married, but Kierkegaard never forgot her, and he dedicated the whole of his literary
oeuvre to her.
Kierkegaard had an idea about existential phases (in Danish: "stadier"), which people
seem to pass through, and he presented this variety of phases in works published under an
imaginary pen name. Inventing the pseudonym of Victor Eremita, he published one of
his main oeuvres in 1843 by the title "Either - Or".
Then followed swiftly other such oeuvres as for example "Frygt og Bæven (1843),
"Gjentagelsen" (1843), "Begrebet Angest" (1844) and "Stadier paa Livets Vei"
(1845). The pseudonym oeuvres form an essential bloc within his authorship. Herein his
philosophy of different phases and outlook on life was presented. Kierkegaard wanted to write
exhaustively about various outlooks on life, and he did so by creating a multiplicy of imagined
authors; so that each pseudonym represents an individual, particular outlook on life.
When he had achieved "Uvidenskabelig Efterskrift", Kierkegaard felt empty for
inspiration to write anymore, for he had written intensively every day "maybe without one
single day off." It has to be carried in mind, that many of the subjects which Kierkegaard
treated during his pseudonymous authorship, were rooted in his youth and thus well reflected
upon before he began his brilliant productive ecstasy period after the breaking of the
engagement with his loved one. A fearful thought of dying young may have added to his haste.
Kierkegaard was lucky to have inherited a large fortune, which enabled him to arrange himself
most appropriately so that he could devote himself to his writing.
This biography is to be continued as soon as possible...
SOME KIERKEGAARD QUOTATIONS
While Life has to be lived forwards, it can only be understood by looking backwards.
Of all joys, the joy of expectation is indeed the biggest.
To dare is to lose control for a while; not to dare is to lose a whole life.
Most people run so fast after pleasure, that they surpass it without noticing.
People are unfair. They never explore the range of freedoms, which they are granted, but demand
to explore the kind of freedoms which they have not.
To truly exist, that is with one's consciousness to penetrate one's Existence
eternally, far away from it and inside it and at its creation; that is indeed very difficult.
Among all ridiculous things it seems to me that the most ridiculous is to be busy,
to be a man who hastens when he eats or does his errant in a quick manner. When
I see a fly land on such a businessman's nose, or mud is thrown at him by the
acceleration of a yet hastier car passing by, or Knippelsbro Copenhagen Bridge
is blocked for the sake of a boat passing under it, or a stone fall down from a
house and kills him, then I laugh out of full lungs. Who could bare himself or herself for
not laughing? What good do they accomplish these people of hasting? Do they not
end up like that old woman who, from sudden stupefaction of finding out that
her house is burning, rescues nothing else than the chimney iron? What else do they
rescue from of Life's big fire?
It is quite true what Philosophy says, that Life must be understood backwards.
But that makes one forget the other saying, that it must be lived forwards. This sentence,
the more it is thought through, leaves us with the conclusion, that life in the temporal
existence never becomes quite intelligible, precisely because I at no moment can find
complete quiet to take the position: backwards.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Being idle is, as people tell, the root of all things evil. As to avoid evil, people normally
recommend working. Yet one understands easily from as well the reason as the cure that the
whole saying is of plebeian extraction. Being idle is not at all the root of evil, on
the contrary it is a true divine life, when one is not bored. Being idle may lead to
economical losses, yet one's inner nobility fears not outer losses, it only fears to be
bored. The Gods of Olympos were not bored, they lived happily in idleness (...) So being idle
is far away from being the root of evil - it is a blessing. Being bored is the root of
evil, and it must be kept away. So one may add that people who have never dedicated
themselves to idleness, and have no sense so ever therefore, have not really dedicated
themselves to human life. There exists unseizable activities which exclude a man [or a
woman] from the spiritual world and thereby categorizes him [or her] together with animals,
since he [or she] instinctively always has to be in motion (...) Well, since people believe
that it is man's determination to work, then it makes an antithesis between idleness and
work. I for one assume that it is man's determination to be amused, and I feel
not that my antithesis [amusement vs. work] is any more erroneous.
To deceive oneself for love is the most terrible thing to do, it brings about an
eternal loss for which there is no replacement in time or eternity.
Women are and remain a inexhaustible material for considerations, and eternal infinity of
observations. A person whoever he or she is, who feels no need for this kind of study, is
no aesthetician at all. This is indeed the splendid and divine thing about aesthetics that
it only comes into life when concerned about beauty, it concerns beautiful literature [art]
and the fair sex alone. I rejoice, as well as my heart rejoices, when imagining the sun of
womanliness shine in an infinite manifold, spreading in a Babylonian tongue confusion, where
everyone possesses just a tiny bit of the richness of womanliness, in a way that the remaining
parts stay with her and harmoniously create a concentricity of beauty around that very tiny
bit (...) My eye shall never be exhausted from runing over this congregation of diversity,
these splendid emanations of womanly beauty.
One easily forgives a girl that she cannot give reasons; she lives in her feelings,
people might say. I am different. Ordinarily I have so many reasons, and they are
often in opposition one to another, so simply therefore I cannot tell my reasons.
The same about cause and effect; it seems to me that these two do not pair
together. Soon you will notice that infamous and gigantesque causes result
only in a funny little effect; whereas yet so soon a slight, little fart will
cause much ado.
I see tokens in the flight of the birds, of their screaming, in the bashing of fish
against the surface of the sea, of their disappearance in deep waters, of a remote
dog's giggling, of the noise of a remote chariot, of foot steps, of echoes from
far away. Not see I ghosts in this very hour of the night, not see I things which
have really existed, yet see I what will be reflected in the bossom of the lake, in
the kiss of morning dew, in the fog which spreads over the fields and hides their fruitful
embracement. Everything is image, and as for myself, I am a myth about myself.
Apparently the human being has not been given speech to express what it thinks,
but to express that it does not think at all.
Today, one speaks with a man and fairly understands him; tomorrow you speak with the
same person and he speaks in tongues and weird words - helas, he is love!
When she stands dressed up as a bride, and all her splendour yet fades beside her
beauty, and she fades herself, and the blood seems to stop circulating, and the
bosom rests, and the look in her eyes grows pale, when the foot totters, when the
virgin shelves, when the fruit matures, when Heavens lift her up, when serenity strengthens
her, when promise carries her, when her prayers bless her, when the myrtle envelops her,
when the heart trembles, when the eye dares only look to the ground, when she hides
herself within, when she belongs not to the World and yet does belong to it, when her
bossom waves, when she sighs, when her voice fails, when tears are streaming, before
the enigma is resolved, when the flame is lit, when the bridegroom is waiting ... all that
indicates that is the very moment [to grasp] ... soon it will be all too late!
How beautiful she is! Poor mirror, it must be a pain for your, luckily you know
nothing of jealousy. Her head is round and oval, she bends over a little, whereby the
forehead furrows, her clean and proud foreheads which is not disturbed by marks of
reasoning organs. Dark hair wraps tenderly her forehead. Her face is like a fruit,
every change is concealed by round forms: her skin is transparent and to touch it feels
like touching velvet, well, that is what I sense with mine eyes. Her eyes - although I
haven't seen them yet - are concealed by lids ornamented with fringes of silk, which wave
and stretch and are barbed, so they are indeed dangerous for the one who seeks to meet her
look. Oh yes, all together her face is a Madonna face, characterized by purity and chastity.
Oblivion is like a pair of scissors, with which one cuts away what is not useful, yet under
the utmost attention of memory. Thus oblivion and memory are identical, and one's identity,
ever so artificially procured, is that kind of Point of Archimedes whereby one lifts up the
whole World. So when one says, "write something into the book of oblivion", one actually means
that it is going to be forgotten at the same time as it yet is kept (recorded)".
The very love which one remembers is the only really felicitous love, a writer once said. And he is
perfectly right, yet we must remember, that even long before the same love has made a person
infelicitous. So, love of repetition is indeed the only felicitous one, for it owns not - like
love of memory - the worry of hope, not the anxiety of discovery and adventure, not the sadness
of memory - it owns the delightful assurance of the very moment. Hope is like new garments,
stiff and narrow, yet one has never worn it before, so one knows not how it is going to suit,
or how it fits.
To be bourgeois is to be without spirit, yet being without spirit is also a kind of despair.
Being bourgeois lacks every determination of spirit and calculates probabilities, in which
field it finds its narrow expression; so it lacks possibility of experiencing God. Since
the bourgeois is always without fantasy, he must live within the boring and narrow limits
of his experience, as how things happen, what is possible, what usually happens; the bourgeois
in this case can be as well a beer man as a prime minister. Thus the bourgeois has lost himself
being without himself and without God...
Time passes. Life is a stream and so on, people say. I cannot feel it; Time stands still,
and I too. Thus all the plans that I cast out, return directly onto myself, so when I spit,
I actually hit my own face.
IF you would like to read more, then have a look here...
WORLD-LITERATURE-WEB.net
Kierkegaard
Quotes in Danish ~ By PostCultural Blues
Web Site on Kierkegaard ~ By D. Anthony Storm
Extistentialism and beyond ~ By Christopher Scott Wyatt
The Realm of Exitentialism ~ By Katharene Eiermann
Advice and commentaries are welcome!
May Wealth, Strength and Inner Harmony prevail...
© Flemming Ravn Neft ~ http://neft.homepage.dk/e-kierke.htm