The Essential Kierkegaard

By Søren Kierkegaard

Book Overview

This is the most comprehensive anthology of S ren Kierkegaard's works ever assembled in English. Drawn from the volumes of Princeton's authoritative Kierkegaard's Writings series by editors Howard and Edna Hong, the selections represent every major aspect of Kierkegaard's extraordinary career. They reveal the powerful mix of philosophy, psychology, theology, and literary criticism that made Kierkegaard one of the most compelling writers of the nineteenth century and a shaping force in the twentieth. With an introduction to Kierkegaard's writings as a whole and explanatory notes for each selection, this is the essential one-volume guide to a thinker who changed the course of modern intellectual history. The anthology begins with Kierkegaard's early journal entries and traces the development of his work chronologically to the final The Changelessness of God . The book presents generous selections from all of Kierkegaard's landmark works, including Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Works of Love , and The Sickness unto Death , and draws new attention to a host of such lesser-known writings as Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions and The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air . The selections are carefully chosen to reflect the unique character of Kierkegaard's work, with its shifting pseudonyms, its complex dialogues, and its potent combination of irony, satire, sermon, polemic, humor, and fiction. We see the esthetic, ethical, and ethical-religious ways of life initially presented as dialogue in two parallel series of pseudonymous and signed works and later in the "second authorship" as direct address. And we see the themes that bind the whole together, in particular Kierkegaard's overarching concern with, in his own words, "What it means to exist; . . . what it means to be a human being.? Together, the selections provide the best available introduction to Kierkegaard's writings and show more completely than any other book why his work, in all its creativity, variety, and power, continues to speak so directly today to so many readers around the world.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691033099
• ISBN13: 9780691033099
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 544 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

May the laughter by on your side

With a dizzying series of pseudonyms, from Climaticus to Anticlimaticus, this book selects from the Hong's expansive translation of all of Kierkegaard's writings. The introductions place each piece in context, but don't over interpret as some other books. Reading from the complete work presents a view of Kierkegaard's total plan ("The Authorship") and his voices of the religious, esthetic, and ethical. In light of the whole body, "Concluding Unscientific postscript" seems to have a pivotal role. Existentialists may like to claim him as he speaks of the individual about despair, fear and trembling, and anxiety, but make no mistake his work is to be a Christian (" Once and for all I must urgently request the kindly disposed reader continually to bear in mente [in mind] that the total thought in the entire work as an author is this" becoming a Christian"). He is a self appointed critic of the established church and the inclusion of the lesser known "The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air' shows the religious side. Present are all of Kierkegaard's "Knights": the Knight of Faith, the Knight of Infinite Resignation, and the Knight of Hidden Awareness. Humor and irony abound. Come leap in, and have a good read!

haven't read this particular edition of Kierkegard

nevertheleee... introduced to man as on ofthe four main existentialist.., nietsche,camus sartre... maybe fifth antoine de st. exupery's flight to arrashowever.. suffice to comment.. kierkegardis mellow manthe triumvirate brace of christianicphilosophy is soren kierkegard, andthe psychologists, bruto bettleheim,harry stack sullivan, and karen horneybest wishes, enjoy one's own bibliophilic bentspotter3 coastwatch quadrant 8, truk atoll, caroline islands,south pacific

Excellent Anthology

A wonderful, chronologically arranged anthology from the immensely prodigious output of Soren Kierkegaard, complete with excellent introductory notes.My only criticism? The typography is a bit dense, and in particular the font size for the running text is small. I would appeal to the publisher to reformat this book using a larger text size (e.g., 10 point) -- even at the expense of adding additional pages to the overall book size.

The Master of Irony

Søren Kierkegaard is undoubtedly the comedian's philosopher. And his humor is fundamentally reassuring - hilarious, even biting, but never bitter or nihilistic. He is one of the major influences on the films and writings of Woody Allen. Often Kierkegaard is rumored to be bleak, hopeless and terrifying. There are elements of despair, yes, but I've always found him good for a laugh even at his darkest. His humor is similar to Woody Allen's in that it is simultaneously cathartic, sobering and very funny. I flip around this excellent anthology and re-read passages in my spare time for encouragement.