My Cordelia, What, fear? When we stay together, we are strong, stronger than the world, even stronger than the gods themselves. As you know, there once lived a race upon the earth who were hu- man beings, to be sure, but who were self-sufficient and did not know the intensely fervent union of erotic love [Elskov]. Yet they were powerful, so powerful that they wanted to as- sault heaven. Jupiter feared them and divided them in such a way that one became two, a man and a woman.”*° If it some- 410 411 444 Either/Or, I times happens that what was once united is again joined in love [Kjerlighed], then such a union is stronger than Jupiter; they are then not merely as strong as the single individual was, but even stronger, for the union of love [Kjerlighed] is an even higher union.
Your JOHANNES September 24 37The night is still—the clock strikes a quarter to twelve— the hunter at the city gate blows his benediction out across the countryside, and it echoes from Blegdam; he enters the gate— he blows again, and it echoes from still farther away. —Every- thing sleeps in peace, but not erotic love [Elskov].8 Arise, then, you mysterious powers of erotic love, concentrate your- selves in this breast! The night is silent—a solitary bird breaks this silence with its cry and the beat of its wings as it sweeps over the misty field toward the slope of the embankment; no doubt it, too, is hastening to a rendezvous—accipio omen [I ac- cept the omen]!?3? —How ominous all nature is! ] take auguries from the flight of the birds, from their cries, from the frolic- some slap of the fish on the surface of the water, from their vanishing into the depths, from the faraway baying of a dog, from the rattling of a carriage in the distance, from footsteps echoing far off. At this hour of the night, I do not see ghosts; in the bosom of the lake, in the kiss of the dew, in the fog that spreads out over the earth and hides its fertile embrace, I do not see what has been but what is to come. Everything is a meta- phor; I myself am a myth about myself, for is it not as a myth that I hasten to this tryst? Who I am is irrelevant; everything finite and temporal is forgotten; only the eternal remains, the power of erotic love, its longing, its bliss. How responsive is my soul, like a taut bow, how ready are my thoughts, like ar- rows in my quiver, not poisoned, and yet able to blend with blood. How vigorous, sound, and happy is my soul, as pres- ent as a god. She was beautiful by nature. I thank you, marvelous nature! Like a mother, you have watched over her. Thank you for The Seducer’s Diary 445 your solicitude. Unspoiled she was. I thank you, you human beings to whom she owed this. Her development—that was my work—soon I shall enjoy my reward. —How much I have gathered into this one moment that is now at hand! Damned if T should fail now!
As yet I do not see my carriage. —I hear the crack of the whip; it is my driver. —Drive on for dear life, even if the horses collapse, but not one second before we reach the place.
September 25 Why cannot such a night last longer? If Alectryon?*° could forget himself, why cannot the sun be sympathetic enough to do so? But now it is finished, and J never want to see her again. When a girl has given away everything, she is weak, she has lost everything, for in a man innocence is a negative element, but in woman it is the substance of her being. Now all resist- ance is impossible, and to love is beautiful only as long as re- sistance is present; as soon as it ceases, to love is weakness and habit. I do not want to be reminded of my relationship with her; she has lost her fragrance, and the times are past when a girl agonizing over her faithless lover is changed into a heli- otrope.*4! I shall not bid her farewell; nothing is more revolt- ing than the feminine tears and pleas that alter everything and yet are essentially meaningless.*4? I did love her, but from now on she can no longer occupy my soul. If I were a god, I would do for her what Neptune did for a nymph: transform her into a man.* Yet it would really be worth knowing whether or not one could poetize oneself out of a girl in such a way as to make her so proud that she imagined it was she who was bored with the relationship. It could be a very interesting epilogue, which in and by itself could have psychological interest and besides that furnish one with many erotic observations.”# 412 SUPPLEMENT Key To References 448 Original Title Page of Either/Or, Part I 450 Selected Entries from Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers Pertaining to Either/Or, Part I 453 KEY TO REFERENCES Marginal references alongside the text are to volume and page [1 100] in Seren Kierkegaards Samlede Verker, I-XIV, edited by A. B. Drachman, J. L. Heiberg, and H. O. Lange (1 ed., Co- penhagen: Gyldendal, 1901-06). The same marginal references are used in Séren Kierkegaard, Gesammelte Werke, Abt. 1-36 (Diisseldorf: Diederichs Verlag, 1952-69).
References to Kierkegaard’s works in English are to this edi- tion, Kierkegaard’s Writings [KW], I-XXV (Princeton: Prince- ton University Press, 1978- ). Specific references to the Writ- ings are given by English title and the standard Danish pagination referred to above [ Stages, KW XI (SV VI 100)].
References to the Papirer [Pap. I A 100; note the differentiat- ing letter A, B, or C, used only in references to the Papirer] are to Seren Kierkegaards Papirer, 1-XI>, edited by P. A. Heiberg, V. Kuhr, and E. Torsting (1 ed., Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1909-48), and 2 ed., photo-offset with two supplemental vol- umes, XII-XIII, edited by Niels Thulstrup (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1968-70), and with index, XIV-XVI (1975-78), edited by N. J. Cappelorn. References to the Papirer in English [JP II 1500] are to the volume and serial entry number in Seren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, I-VI, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Ma- lantschuk (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967-78).
References to correspondence are to the serial numbers in Breve og Aktstykker vedrerende Seren Kierkegaard, I-II, edited by Niels Thulstrup (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1953-54), and to the corresponding serial numbers in Kierkegaard: Letters and Documents, translated by Henrik Rosenmeier, Kierkegaard’s Writings, XXV [Letters, Letter 100, KW XXV].
References to books in Kierkegaard’s own library [ASKB 100] are based on the serial numbering system of Auktionspro- tokol over Seren Kierkegaards Bogsamling (Auction-catalog of Key to References 449 Seren Kierkegaard’s Book-collection), edited by H. P. Rohde (Copenhagen: Royal Library, 1967).
In the Supplement, references to page and lines in the text are given as: 100:1-10.
In the notes, internal references to the present work are given as: p. 100.
Three periods indicate an omission by the editors; five pe- riods indicate a hiatus or fragmentariness in the text.
Gt Livs- Fragment udgivet af Victor Gremita, Forfte Deel indeholbende 2's Papirer.
Gr da Fornnften alexe debt, ere LidenRaberne Hedninger?
Bonng.
ee DG Gi Ajobenhavn 1843.
Faaes Fos Univerfitetshoghandler €. A. Weitsel. Trt i Bianco Lunos Bogtrpiteri.
Either - Or.
A Fragment of Life edited by Victor Eremita.
Part One containing A’s Papers.
Is reason then alone baptized, are the passions pagans?
Young.
Copenhagen 1843.
Available at University Bookseller C. A. Reitzel’s.
Printed by Bianco Luno Press.
SELECTED ENTRIES FROM KIERKEGAARD’S JOURNALS AND PAPERS PERTAINING TO EITHER/OR, PARTI Copenhagen, June 1, 1835!
You know how inspiring I once found it to listen to you* and how enthusiastic I was about your description of your stay in Brazil, although not so much on account of the mass of de- tailed observations with which you have enriched yourself and your scholarly field as on account of the impression your first journey into that wondrous nature made upon you: your par- adisical happiness and joy. Something like this is bound to find a sympathetic response in any person who has the least feeling and warmth, even though he seeks his satisfaction, his occu- pation, in an entirely different sphere, but especially so in a young person who as yet only dreams of his destiny. Our early youth is like a flower at dawn with a lovely dewdrop in its cup, harmoniously and pensively reflecting everything that sur- rounds it. But soon the sun rises over the horizon, and the dewdrop evaporates; with it vanish the fantasies of life, and now it becomes a question (to use a flower metaphor once more) whether or not man is able to produce—by his own ef- forts as does the nereum—a drop that may represent the fruit of his life. This requires, above all, that one be allowed to grow in the soil where one really belongs, but that is not always so easy to find. In this respect there exist fortunate creatures who have such a decided inclination in a particular direction that they faithfully follow the path once it is laid out for them without ever falling prey to the thought that perhaps they ought to have followed an entirely different path. There are others who let themselves be influenced so completely by their surround- A72 45 AT2 46 A72 47 454 Supplement ings that it never becomes clear to them in what direction they are really striving. Just as the former group has its own im- plicit categorical imperative, so the latter recognizes an explicit categorical imperative. But how few there are in the former group, and to the latter I do not wish to belong. Those who get to experience the real meaning of Hegelian dialectics in their lives are greater in number. Incidentally, it is altogether natural for wine to ferment before it becomes clear; neverthe- less this process is often disagreeable in its several stages, al- though regarded in its totality it is of course agreeable, pro- vided it does in the end yield its relative results in the context of the usual doubt. This is of major significance for anybody who has come to terms with his destiny by means of it, not only because of the calm that follows in contrast to the preced- ing storm, but because one then has life in a quite different sense than before. For many, it is this Faustian element that makes itself more or less applicable to every intellectual devel- opment, which is why it has always seemed to me that we should concede cosmic significance to the Faust concept. Just as our ancestors worshipped a goddess of yearning, so I think that Faust represents doubt personified. He need be no more than that, and Goethe probably sins against the concept when he permits Faust to convert, as does Mérimée? when he permits Don Juan to convert. One cannot use the argument against me that Faust is taking a positive step at the instant he applies to the Devil, for right here, it seems to me, is one of the most significant elements in the Faust legend. He surrendered himself to the Devil for the express purpose of attaining en- lightenment, and it follows that he was not in possession of it prior to this; and precisely because he surrendered himself to the Devil, his doubt increased (just as a sick person who falls into the hands of a medical quack usually gets sicker). For al- though Mephistopheles permitted him to look through his spectacles into man and into the secret hiding places of the earth, Faust must forever doubt him because of his inability to provide enlightenment about the most profound intellectual matters. In accordance with his own idea he could never turn to God because in the very instant he did so he would have to Either/Or, I 455 admit to himself that here in truth lay enlightenment; but in that same instant he would, in fact, have denied his character as one who doubts.
But such a doubt can also manifest itself in other spheres. Even though a man may have come to terms with a few of these main issues, life offers other significant questions. Nat- urally every man desires to work according to his abilities in this world, but it follows from this that he wishes to develop his abilities in a particular direction, namely, in that which is best suited to him as an individual. But which is that? Here I am confronted with a big question mark. Here I stand like Hercules—not at a crossroads—no, but at a multitude of roads, and therefore it is all the harder to choose the right one. Perhaps it is my misfortune in life that | am interested in far too many things rather than definitely in any one thing. My inter- ests are not all subordinated to one but are all coordinate.
I shall attempt to show how matters look to me.
1. The natural sciences. (In this category I include all those who seek to explain and interpret the runic script of nature, ranging from him who calculates the speed of the stars and, so to speak, arrests them in order to study them more closely, to him who describes the physiology of a particular animal, from him who surveys the surface of the earth from the mountain peaks to him who descends to the depths of the abyss, from him who follows the development of the human body through its countless nuances to him who examines intestinal worms.) First, when I consider this whole scholarly field, I re- alize that on this path as well as on every other (but indeed pri- marily here) I have of course seen examples of men who have made names for themselves in the annals of scholarship by means of enormous diligence in collecting. They master a great wealth of details and have discovered many new ones, but no more than that. They have merely provided the sub- stratum for the thought and elaboration of others. These men are content with their details, and yet to me they are like the rich farmer in the gospel;* they have gathered great stores in their barn, yet science may declare to them: “Tomorrow I de- mand your life,” inasmuch as it is that which determines the A72 48 A72 49 A72 50 456 Supplement significance of each particular finding for the whole. To the extent that there is a sort of unconscious life in such a man’s knowledge, the sciences may be said to demand his life, but to the extent that there is not, his activity is comparable to that of the man who nourishes the earth by the decay of his dead body. The case differs of course with respect to other phenom- ena, with respect to those scholars in the natural sciences who have found or have sought to find by their speculation that Ar- chimedean point that does not exist in the world and who from this point have considered the totality and seen the com- ponent parts in their proper light. As far as they are concerned, I cannot deny that they have had a very salutary effect on me. The tranquillity, the harmony, the joy one finds in them is rarely found elsewhere. We have three worthy representatives here in town: an Mrsted,° whose face has always seemed to me like a chord that nature has sounded in just the right way; a Schouw,* who provides a study for the painter who wanted to paint Adam naming the animals; and finally a Hornemann,’ who, conversant with every plant, stands like a patriarch in nature. In this connection, I also remember with pleasure the impression you made upon me as the representative of a great nature which also ought to be represented in the National As- sembly. I have been and am still inspired by the natural sciences; and yet I do not think that I shall make them my prin- cipal field of study. By virtue of reason and freedom, life has always interested me most, and it has always been my desire to clarify and solve the riddle of life. The forty years in the des- ert before I could reach the promised land of the sciences seem too costly to me, and the more so as I believe that nature may also be observed from another side, which does not require in- sight into the secrets of science. It matters not whether I con- template the whole world in a single flower or listen to the many hints that nature offers about human life; whether I ad- mire those daring designs on the firmament; or whether, upon hearing the sounds of nature in Ceylon,* for example, I am re- minded of the sounds of the spiritual world; or whether the de- parture of the migratory birds? reminds me of the more pro- found yearnings of the human heart.
Either/Or, I 457 2. Theology. This seems to be what I have most clearly cho- sen for my own,"® yet there are great difficulties here as well. In Christianity itself there are contradictions so great that they prevent an unobstructed view, to a considerable extent, at any rate. As you know, I grew up in orthodoxy, so to speak. But from the moment I began to think for myself, the gigantic co- lossus began to totter. I call it a gigantic colossus advisedly, for taken as a whole it does have a good deal of consistency, and in the course of many centuries past, the component parts have become so rightly fused that it is difficult to come to terms with them. I might now agree with some of its specific points, but then these could only be considered like the seedlings one often finds growing in rock fissures. On the other hand, I might also see the inconsistencies in many specific points, but I would still have to let the main basis stand in dubito for some time. The instant that changed, the whole would of course as- sume an entirely different cast, and thus my attention is drawn to another phenomenon: rationalism, which by and large cuts a pretty poor figure. There is really nothing to object to in ra- tionalism, as long as reason consistently pursues its own end and—in rendering an explanation of the relation between God and the world—again comes to see man in his most profound and spiritual relation to God. In this respect, rationalism from its own point of view considers Christianity that which for many centuries has satisfied man’s deepest need. But then it is in fact no longer rationalism, for rationalism is given its real coloring by Christianity. Hence it occupies a completely dif- ferent sphere and does not constitute a system but a Noah’s Ark (to adopt an expression Professor Heiberg! used on an- other occasion), in which the clean and the unclean animals lie down side by side. It makes roughly the same impression as our Citizens’ Volunteer Company of old would have made alongside the Royal Potsdam Guards. Therefore it attempts essentially to ally itself with Christianity, bases its arguments upon Scripture, and in advance of every single point dis- patches a legion of Biblical quotations that in no way penetrate the argument. The rationalists behave like Cambyses,!? who in his campaign against Egypt dispatched the sacred chickens A72 51 A72 52 458 Supplement and cats in advance of his army, but they are prepared, like the Roman Consul, to throw the sacred chickens overboard when they refuse to eat.!> The fallacy is that when they are in agree- ment with Scripture, they use it as a basis, but otherwise not. Thus they adopt mutually exclusive points of view.
Nonnulla desunt [something missing].
As to minor discomforts I will merely say that I am now studying for my theological qualifying examinations, an oc- cupation that holds no interest for me at all and which accord- ingly does not proceed with the greatest efficiency. I have al- ways preferred the free and thus perhaps somewhat indefinite course of study to that service offered at a pre-set table where one knows in advance the guests one will meet and the food one will be served every single day of the week. Nevertheless, it is a necessity, and one is scarcely permitted out onto the scholarly commons without having been branded. In my pres- ent state of mind, I also consider it useful for me to do so and furthermore, I also know that in this way I can make Father very happy (for he thinks that the true land of Canaan! lies be- yond the theological qualifying examinations, but at the same time, as Moses once did, he climbs Mount Tabor and reports that I will never get in—but I do hope that his prophecy will not come true this time), so I suppose I must get to work. How fortunate you are to have found in Brazil a vast field of investigation where every step offers strange new objects and where the cries of the rest of the learned republic cannot dis- turb your peace. To me the learned theological world seems like the Strandvej'® on a Sunday afternoon in the season when everybody goes to Bakken in Dyrehven: they tear past each other, yell and scream, laugh and make fun of each other, drive their horses to death, overturn, and are run over. Finally, when they reach Bakken covered with dust and out of breath—well, they look at each other—and go home.
As far as your returning is concerned, it would be childish of me to hasten it, as childish as when the mother of Achilles!” attempted to hide him in order that he might avoid a speedy Either/Or, I 459 honorable death. —Take care of yourself!—Pap. I A 72 June 1, 1835; Letters, Letter 3, KW XXV.
The proximity of the tragic to the comic (an observation particularly attributable to Holberg’s use of comedy—for ex- ample, his Jeppe paa Bjerget, Erasmus Montanus, den Stundeslose, etc.) seems to account also for the fact that a person can laugh until he begins to cry.
January 19, 1835 On the other hand, the comic lies so close to the tragic that, for example, in Goethe’s Egmont, act 5, scene 1, we are inclined to smile at the Hollanders.—JP IV 4823 (Pap. I A 34) n.d., 1835 I would have been very happy if Goethe had never contin- ued Faust; I would then have called it a miracle; but here hu- man frailty has overcome him. It takes a certain strength to see the hero of a piece get the worst of it in his struggle, in this case despairing over his doubt; but it is precisely this which gives Faust greatness, that is, it is his reformation which draws him down into the common everyday life. His death is the ultimate reconciliation in the work, and we could very well sit and weep over his grave but never think of lifting the curtain which at death made him invisible to our eyes.—JP II 1178 (Pap. 1 A 104) November 1, 1835 It is interesting that Faust (whom I perhaps more properly place in the third stage as the more mediate) embodies both Don Juan and the Wandering Jew (despair).— It must not be forgotten, either, that Don Juan must be in- terpreted lyrically (therefore with music), the Wandering Jew epically, and Faust dramatically.—JP I 1179 (Pap. I C 58) De- cember, 1835 When I notice that my head is beginning to act up. —The poet should have what the Northmen expected in Valhalla—a pig from which a piece can always be cut and which always re- stores itself.
460 Supplement Shoot a bullet in the head: three, two, one, now the tale is done; eight, nine, ten, now another can begin.—JP V 5140 (Pap. I A 156) n.d., 1836 I have just now come from a gathering where I was the life of the party; witticisms flowed out of my mouth; everybody laughed, admired me—but I left, yes, the dash ought to be as long as the radii of the earth’s orbit——____JJ»__S Blast it all, I can abstract from everything but not from myself, I cannot even forget myself when I sleep.—JP V 5142 (Pap. I A 162) n.d., 1836 A strange apprehensiveness—every time I woke up in the morning after having drunk too much, [what it was about] eventually came true.—JP V 5146 (Pap. I A 179) n.d., 1836 Someone who went insane because he was constantly aware that the earth was going around.—JP V 5147 (Pap. I A 182) n.d., 1836 Does not Goethe’s treatment of Faust really lack the enthu- siasm for knowledge that nevertheless must be regarded as characteristic of Faust? —Something I have expressed on an- other occasion is no doubt true—that Faust embodies Don Juan; yet his love life and his sensuality can never be like Don Juan’s. With Faust the latter has already become indirect, something into which he plunges himself, driven by de- spair.—JP II 1180 (Pap. I A 227) August 25, 1836 What does it mean and to what extent is it true that every age has its Faust etc.? —No, in the development of the world there is only one Faust, only one Don Juan, but for the single individual just as for the individual nation in the development Either/Or, I 461 of the world there naturally is one for each. Precisely for that reason Faust, for example, can in a certain sense reform, in which case this is the new period’s interpretation—which, please note, is not a conception of Faust but is the idea of this age.—JP11181 (Pap. 1 A 292) n.d., 1836 At the moment the greatest fear is of the total bankruptcy toward which all Europe seems to be moving and men forget the far greater danger, a seemingly unavoidable bankruptcy in an intellectual-spiritual sense that waits at the door, a confu- sion of language!’ far more dangerous than that (typical) Ba- bylonian confusion, than the confusion of dialects and national languages following that Babylonian attempt of the Middle Ages—that is, a confusion in the languages themselves, a mu- tiny, the most dangerous of all, of the words themselves, which, wrenched out of man’s control, would despair, as it were, and crash in upon one another, and out of this chaos a person would snatch, as from a grab-bag, the handiest word to express his presumed thoughts.* In vain do individual great men seek to mint new concepts and to set them in circula- tion—it is pointless. They are used for only a moment, and not by many either, and they merely contribute to making the confusion even worse, for one idea seems to have become the fixed idea of the age: to surpass one’s superior. If the past may be charged with a certain indolent self-satisfaction in rejoicing over what it had, it would indeed be a shame to make the same charge against the present age (the minuet of the past and the galop of the present). Under a curious delusion, the one cries out incessantly that he has surpassed the other, just as the Co- penhageners, with philosophic visage, go out to Dyrehaugen’” “in order to see and observe,” without remembering that they themselves become objects for the others, who have also gone out simply to see and observe. Thus there is the continuous leap-frogging” of one over the other—‘‘on the basis of the im- manent negativity of the concept,” as I heard a Hegelian say * One would speak according to the association of ideas (the words’ Selbst- sucht [self-seeking]).
A 328 138 1 A 328 139 A 328 140 462 Supplement recently, when he pressed my hand and made a run prelimi- nary to jumping. —When I see someone energetically walking along the street, [am certain that in his joy he will shout to me, “T have gone further than,’’—but unfortunately I did not hear who had been surpassed (this actually happened); I will leave a blank for the name, so everyone can fill in an appropriate name.” If older critics have been charged with always seeking in their retrogression an older writer whom they could use as a model in order to censure later writers, it would be wrong to charge contemporaries with this, for now when the critic sets about to write there is hardly a writer left to provide the ideal, and instead of this the publisher who is supposed to promote the critic’s work sees in amazement a counter-criticism of the criticism not yet written.** Most systems and viewpoints also date from yesterday, and the conclusion is arrived at as easily as falling in love is accomplished in a novel where it says: To see her and to love her were synonymoust—and it is through curious circumstances that philosophy has acquired such a long historical tail from Descartes to Hegel, a tail, however, which is very meager in comparison with that once used, be- ginning with the creation of the world, and perhaps is more comparable to the tail that man has, according to the natural scientists. But when one sees how necessary it has become ina