KIERKEGAARD: A KIND OF POET ?
Louis Mackey once wrote a book about Soren Kierkegaard in which he argued that Kierkegaard has always been misunderstood. He claimed, cogently I think, that rather than seeing SK as primarily a religious or philosophical thinker we should see him as primarily a literary or poetic thinker. I find that his argument makes good sense. If one reads SK’s journals carefully it becomes clear that he saw himself as a writer with cause, namely that of goading his readers to think, or rethink, not only about the quality and direction of their lives but also about the nature of faith and the place of the Christian religion in modern society.
KIERKEGAARD a kIND OF POET The first clue to seeing SK in this way is his copious use of pseudonyms. The authors of his famous two volume work Either/Or is said to be “A” and “B”. Along the way SK employed such names as “Johannes Climacus”, “Johannes Anti-Climacus”, Victor Eremita” and “Constantine Constantius”, and “Johanes de Silentio.” The authors name, especially his own, designates the point of view from
works and those of his created authors is as crucial as it is clearcut.
The second clue to interpreting SK is the creative, poetic quality of his pseudonymous writings contrasted to the more straight-forward, analytic format of his essays, such as with his edifying discourses and straightforward essays such as Training in Christianity, as well as his diatribes against the established church. It is absolutely crucial to see his various genre as different from each other if one is going to try to interpret the thought of this extremely deep and creative thinker in the way they were meant. This effort is helped by paying attention to his shorter, more essay-like explanations of his angle of approach, as in The Point of View for Understanding My Work As An Author.
As a poet, rather than as a philosophical theologian, Kierkegaard sought to capture and stimulate the religio-psychical spirit and imagination of the redear so as to engage him or her in a struggle to find meaning, both in their own existence and that of the human race. The people of Kierkegaard’s time and place, were like those of our own, or even any. They were complacent with respect to the regular meaning of life in general and their own in particular. In short, at least in his view, his contemporaries were so “comfortable” as to become dead to the deeper issues of life and perhaps beyond.
Kierkegaard, especially in his Either/Or, sought to jar and awaken his own compatriots out of their cultural and existential lethargy, as well as that of people in general. For those who could follow and unpack his large, oft-times convoluted but philosophically and theologically astute volumes he offered deep, surprising analyses of the issues of his own time, as well as those of nearly any time. In his short life of but 42 years Kierkegaard made an indelible, lasting mark on Western intellectual history that will not ever fade. Read by almost no one in his own day, SK can now be read by almost anyone anywhere.
The key issue upon which most of his readers have focused is that between the relationship of faith and reason. Generally he is said to have set reason aside in order to make prominent room for faith. Indeed, he is generally said to have insisted that faith is a “blind leap” into the dark, trusting that it will be rewarded by God. First off, this reading is far too simplistic to do any justice to Kierkegaard. Secondly, The texts where he discusses this relationship are worthy of a closer look than many of his interpreters have given them.
Finally, as Mackey makes clear, Kierkegaard’s purpose throughout all of his pseudonymous writings is to stimulate and stretch the reader’s mind and spirit, rather than offer a final conclusion pertaining to the issues involved. Here is how Mackey himself puts it: “The heresy of paraphrase and the intentional fallacy tempt the reader of Kierkegaard as they tempt readers of poetry generally…Taken as instruments of intent, his works mount up to magnificent nonsense. But the truth is that Kierkegaard the poet of inwardness did not ‘really mean” anything. His “intent” is to exfoliate existential possibilities, not to offer a systematic appraisal of reality as seen from his point of view. Like all poets, he is concerned not with mentioning but with making.” (p. 290)
In other words, Kierkegaard sought to stimulate his readers to think and act on their own. To be drawn into and interact with the issues at hand honestly.