Soren Kierkegaard: A Biography
ISBN: 9781400849604
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Princeton University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Kierkegaard Søren 1813–1855; Philosophers -- Denmark -- Biography;

This is the second major work on Kierkegaard to appear in recent years; Alastair Hannay's intellectual portrait Kierkegaard: A Biography approaches the religious philosopher's life and work in a thematic fashion, discerning behind the veils of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous writings his anxieties and hopes, failures and successes. Garff, associate professor at the S ren Kierkegaard Research Center at the University of Copenhagen, proceeds very differently in this biography, portraying a philosopher whose daily life formed the crucible in which his landmark works were written. Drawing not simply on Kierkegaard's most famous writings, Garff also examines in microscopic fashion the minute details of the Dane's life year-by-year from his birth to his death. Garff uses journals, letters, gossip and family conversations to present the portrait of an intense young man whose study of the philosophy and literature of his day turned him into both a romantic and an anti-romantic, a Christian and a rebel against Christendom. For example, Garff points out that Goethe's Faust heavily influenced the young Kierkegaard, as did his participation in a circle of friends who discussed romantic literature. Although some will accuse Garff of revealing salacious details of the philosopher's life-as in the chapters on Kierkegaard's relationship with his fiancEe Regine Olsen-this monumental and magisterial biography offers fresh glimpses into the sometimes-tortured life and work of this true philosophical genius. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved


Joakim Garff is Associate Professor at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Center at the University of Copenhagen. He is the author of numerous books and articles and is the coeditor of a project to publish definitive new Danish-language editions of all of Kierkegaard's writings. Bruce H. Kirmmse is Professor of History at Connecticut College. His previous works include Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark and Encounters with Kierkegaard (Princeton). He is the chairman of the editorial board of Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks (Princeton, forthcoming).
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