"Selections From the Writings of Kierkegaard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kierkegaard Soren)

Etext of Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
by Soren A. Kierkegaard translated by L.M. Hollander

University of Texas Bulletin
No. 2326: July 8, 1923
Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
Translated by L.M. Hollander
Adjunct Professor of Germanic Languages

Contents
Introduction
Diapsalmata (from Either-Or, Part I)
The Banquet (from Stages on Life's Road, Part I)
Fear and Trembling
Preparation for a Christian Life
The Present Moment

To my Father-in-Law
The Reverend George Fisher,
A Christian

INTRODUCTION

Creditable as have been the contributions of Scandinavia to the
cultural life of the race in well-nigh all fields of human endeavor,
it has produced but one thinker of the first magnitude, the Dane,
Soren A. Kierkegaard. The fact that he is virtually unknown to us
is ascribable, on the one hand to the inaccessibility of his works,
both as to language and form; on the other, to the regrettable
insularity of English thought.

It is the purpose of this book to remedy the defect in a measure,
and by a selection from his most representative works to provide a
stimulus for a more detailed study of his writings; for the present
times, ruled by material considerations, wholly led by socializing,
and misled by national, ideals are precisely the most opportune to
introduce the bitter but wholesome antidote of individual
responsibility, which is his message. In particular, students of
Northern literature cannot afford to know no more than the name
of one who exerted a potent and energizing influence on an
important epoch of Scandinavian thought. To mention only one
instance, the greatest ethical poem of our age,
"Brand"╛notwithstanding Ibsen's curt statement that he "had read
little of Kierkegaard and understood less"╛undeniably owes its
fundamental thought to him, whether directly or indirectly.

Of very few authors can it be said with the same literalness as, of
Kierkegaard that their life is their works: as if to furnish living
proof of his untiring insistance on inwardness, his life, like that of
so many other spiritual educators of the race, is notably poor in