Stages on Life’s Way

by Søren Kierkegaard

  I have nothing further to add. The article in B. T. concerns only me insofar as I have been mentioned as the author and as [VI B 184 258] the author of the upbuilding discourses. Whatever else can be said must, of course, be left to the pseudonymous authors to share.[**] To be summoned before the reading public in order to be praised by a sutler, to be shown a place in literature (in one respect even the most prominent place) by a voting member, to be ordered to proceed by one versed in merchandise—alas, I do not envy them! That is, since the reviewer (in fact, what speedily found name is there for a person who writes something in a newspaper about a book) is anonymous and thus deprived of reliability, and since his style and interpretation höchstens [at best] betray a bookseller’s apprentice, it is

  [**] In margin: They certainly will not disagree about sharing the flattering recognition but will rather agree about . . . . .

  indeed rather droll to read him when he speaks in a manner that undeniably would have great significance if it were, for example, the legitimate ruler in Danish literature, Professor Heiberg, or a European ranking scholar, Professor Madvig,140 or that authoritative firm Kts—speaks in a manner that would have great significance if in the piece itself the writer demonstrated the authority to speak. It is rather curious—one does not, after all, assume that every student, every bookseller, every bookseller’s apprentice, is qualified to be an author; on the other hand, one assumes that every appreciative or demolishing bookseller’s apprentice is capable of assigning an author a place in literature and capable of encouraging him by his approbation. It is rather curious. An unauthorized censure at times is brushed aside, but an unauthorized recognition is allowed to pass.—Pap. VI B 184 n.d., 1845

  The Relation between Either/Or and the Stages [VI B 41 16]

  In Either/Or the esthetic component was something present battling with the ethical, and the ethical was the choice by which one emerged from it. For this reason there were only two components, and the Judge was unconditionally the winner, even though the book ended with a sermon and with the observation that only the truth that builds up is the truth for me (inwardness—the point of departure for my upbuilding discourses).

  In the Stages there are three components and the situation is different.

  1. The esthetic-sensuous is thrust into the background as something past (therefore “a recollection”), for after all it cannot become utterly nothing.

  The Young Man (thought-depression); Constantin Constantius (hardening through the understanding). Victor Eremita, who can no longer be the editor (sympathetic irony); the Fashion Designer (demonic despair); Johannes the Seducer (perdition, a “marked” individual). He concludes by saying that woman is merely a moment. At that very point the Judge [VI B 41 17] begins: Woman’s beauty increases with the years; her reality [Realitet] is precisely in time.

  2. The ethical component is polemical: the Judge is not giving a friendly lecture but is grappling in existence, because he cannot end here, even though with pathos he can triumph again over every esthetic stage but not measure up to the esthetes in wittiness.

  3. The religious comes into existence in a demonic approximation (Quidam of the imaginary construction) with humor as its presupposition and its incognito (Frater Taciturnus).—JP V 5804 (Pap. VI A 41) n.d., 1845

  From sketch of Postscript:

  A story of suffering; suffering is precisely the religious category.

  In the Stages the esthete is no longer a clever fellow frequenting B’s living room—a hopeful man etc., because he still is only a possibility; no, he is existing [existere].

  “It is exactly the same as Either/Or.”

  Constantin Constantius and the Young Man united in Quidam of the imaginary construction. (advanced humor.)

  as a point of departure for the beginning

  of the religious.—

  just as the tragic hero was used to bring out faith.

  Three Stages and yet an Either/Or.

  —JP V 5805 (Pap. VI B 41:10) n.d., 1845

  William Afham’s part (in Stages) is so deceptively contrived that it is praise and high distinction to have stupid fussbudgets pass trivial judgment on it and say that it is the same old thing. Yes, that is just the trick. I never forget the anxiety I myself felt about not being able to achieve what I had once accomplished, and yet it would have been so very easy to choose other names. This is also the reason Afham states that Constantius said that never again would he arrange a banquet, and Victor Eremita, that he would never again speak admiringly of Don Giovanni.141 But the Judge declares that he can keep on repeating.* As the author himself suggested, wherever it is possible and wherever it is not possible.

  *“that only thieves and gypsies say that one must never return where one has once been.”142

  —JP V 5823 (Pap. VI A 78) n.d., 1845

  The Stages will not have as many readers as Either/Or, will barely make a ripple. That is fine; in a way it rids me of the gawking public who want to be wherever they think there is a disturbance. I prophesied this myself in the epilogue to “ ‘Guilty?’/‘Not Guilty?’ ”143—JP V 5824 (Pap. VI A 79) n.d., 1845

  Situation

  With modification it could have been used in the imaginary psychological construction (“ ‘Guilty?’/‘Not Guilty?’ ”): Quidam of the construction, for example, was a theological candidate who became a pastor, lived in the country, came to the capital, at the request of one of his friends preaches at the morning service, delivers the good sermon, everything fine, takes out a piece of paper that is a list of those for whom wedding banns are to be read from the pulpit—and reads: For the third time—here followed the name of the girl to whom he had been engaged and now another name.—JP V 5834 (Pap. VI A 94) n.d., 1845

  For a man engaged in saving himself there is something dreadful about seeing another person go down because of the very same error (this is touched upon in “ ‘Guilty?’/‘Not Guilty?’ ” in Frater Taciturnus’s discussion of sympathetic repentance).144 But if it is true that I do not have the right to compare myself with others in order to praise and exalt myself but need only to relate myself to the ideal, then it is also true that I do not have the right to compare myself with others in order to despair over myself, but here again I must keep to myself and to the truth and never permit myself either proudly or sympathetically to want to understand the truth through the fate of a third person whom I can never know; instead I must grasp the eternal truth.—JP I 924 (Pap. VI A 137) n.d., 1845

  Hilarius Bookbinder, my chief, has been flattered in The Corsair.

  Frater Taciturnus

  In charge of part 3 of

  Stages on Life’s Way.145

  —JP V 5862 (Pap. VII1 B 6) n.d., 1845

  Note for Postscript:

  [VII1 B 83 276] For p. 217 [SV VII 246]

  A note that was not printed because it was prepared later, although it was rough-drafted, and for certain reasons I did not want to change or add the least thing in the manuscript as it was delivered lock, stock, and barrel to Luno the last days of December, 1845.

  Note. This imaginary construction [Experiment] (“ ‘Guilty?’/‘Not Guilty?’ ”) is the first attempt in all the pseudonymous writings at an existential dialectic in double-reflection. It is not the communication that is in the form of double-reflection (for all the pseudonymous works are that), but the existing person himself exists in this. Thus he does not give up immediacy, but he keeps it and yet gives it up, keeps erotic love’s desire and yet gives it up. Viewed categorically, the construction relates to “The Seducer’s Diary” in such a [VII1B 83 277] way that it begins right there where the Seducer ends, with the task he himself suggests: “to poetize himself out of a girl.” (See Either/Or, I, p. 445, KW III [SV I 412].) The Seducer is egotism; in Repetition feeling and irony are kept separate, each in its representative: the Young Man and Constantin. These two elements are put together in the one person, Quidam of the construction, and he is sympathy. To seduce a girl expresses masculine superiority; to poet
ize oneself out of a girl is also a superiority but must become a suffering superiority when one considers the relationship between masculinity and femininity and not a particular silly girl. Masculinity’s victory is supposed to reside in succeeding; but the reality [Realitet] of femininity is supposed to reside in its becoming a story of suffering for the man. Just as it is morally impossible for Quidam of the construction to seduce a girl, so it is metaphysically-esthetically impossible for a seducer to poetize himself out of a girl when it is a matter of the relationship between masculinity and femininity, each in its strength, and not of a particular girl. The Seducer’s egotism culminates in the lines to himself: “She is mine; I do not confide this to the stars . . . . . not even to Cordelia, but say it very softly to myself.” (See Either/Or, I, p. 424, KW III [SV I 392].) Quidam culminates passionately in the outburst: “The whole thing looks like a tale of seduction.”146 What is a triumph to the first one is an ethical horror to the other.—JP V 5865 (Pap. VII1 B 83) n.d., 1846

  From The Book on Adler147

  . . . . . There are examples in Adler of a style in an uncontrolled [VII1A 150 97] form no doubt familiar (esthetically and artistically) to Frater Taciturnus, since he, himself using a completely different style, has Quidam of the imaginary construction express himself in this stylistic form. To construct rhetorically upon a conditional clause and then have the main clause amount to nothing, an abyss from which the reader once again shrinks back, as it were, to the antecedents; to plunge into a tentative effort as if this wealth were inexhaustible and then the very same second discontinue it, which is like the trick of pulling up short at full gallop (most riders fall off—usually one first breaks into a gallop and then into a trot); to be at the head of a cavalry of predicates, the one more gallant and dashing than the other, to charge in, and then swerve; the leap in modulation; the turning to the concept in one single word; the unexpected stop etc. Just as the voice of all passionate peoples, all southern peoples (the Jews, for example) continually breaks, just as every passionate person talks in this manner, so is it also possible to produce this effect stylistically.

  But this would take me much too far afield, and how many are there, after all, who have any intimation of how prose can be used lyrically—and of the task I am committed to, to produce [VII1 A 150 98] in prose a stronger lyrical effect than in verse—if people would only learn how to read and to insist on thought in every word, whereas verse always has a little padding. So I cut this short; it would concern only authors anyway. In this respect, all of the pseudonyms have an unqualified linguistic value in having cultivated prose lyrically. It is clear that Adler, too, has learned something from them, but what his flattering reviewer says in the Kirketidende,148 that he began just about the same time as the pseudonyms, is not true, for he began after them, and the style of his four latest works is markedly different from that of his sermons,149 where he had not as yet been so strongly influenced. On the other hand, what his reviewer says about the presence of passages in Adler (four latest books)150 thoroughly reminiscent of the pseudonyms is true, but I see nothing meritorious in that, neither in copying another nor in forgetting that by having had a revelation of one’s own one has entirely different things to think about than language exercises.—JP V 5939 (Pap. VII1 A 150) n.d., 1846

  From The Book on Adler:

  [VII2 B 235 14] . . . The art in all communication is to come as close as possible to actuality, to contemporaries in the role of readers, and yet at the same time to have the distance of a point of view, the reassuring, infinite distance of ideality from them. Permit me to illustrate this by an example from a later work. In the imaginary psychological construction [psychologiske Experiment] “ ‘Guilty?’/‘Not Guilty?’ ” (in Stages on Life’s Way), there is depicted a character in tension in the most extreme mortal danger of the spirit to the point of despair, and the whole thing is done as though it could have occurred yesterday. In this respect the production is placed as close as possible to actuality: the person struggling religiously in despair hovers, so to speak, right over the head of the contemporaries. If the imaginary construction has made any impression, it might [VII2 B 235 15] be like that which happens when wing strokes of the wild bird, in being heard overhead by the tame birds of the same kind who live securely in the certainty of actuality, prompt these to beat their wings, because those wing strokes simultaneously are unsettling and yet have something that fascinates. But now comes what is reassuring, that the whole thing is an imaginary construction, and that an imaginary constructor stands by. Spiritually understood, the imaginatively constructed character is in a civic sense a highly dangerous character, and such people are usually not allowed to walk alone without being accompanied by a pair of policemen—for the sake of public security. Thus, for the reassurance of public security, in that work an imaginary constructor is along also (he calls himself a street inspector)151 who very quietly shows how the whole thing hangs together, theoretically educes a life-view that he completes and rounds out, while he points interpretively to the imaginatively constructed character in order to indicate how he makes the movements according to the drawing of the strings. If this were not an imaginary construction, if no imaginary constructor were along, if no life-view were represented—then such a work, regardless of the talent it could display, would merely be debilitating. It would be alarming to come in contact with it, because it simply conveyed the impression of an actual person who probably in the next moment would become mad. It is one thing to portray a passionate person when there is the accompaniment of someone more powerful and a view of life that can control him (and I would still like to see how many contemporary critics would be capable of handling the imaginatively constructed character so powerfully, to toss him about as the imaginary constructor does); it is something else that a passionate person, in his own personal actuality with the help of a book, by becoming an author, breaks forth and, as it were, assaults the rest of us with his unexplained doubt and his torments.—Pap. VII2 B 235 n.d., 1846-47

  Strangely enough, the Chinese have the same custom as the Jews. Confucius’s name is Khu or Ju, but when the name appears in the sacred books, the people are forbidden to utter it—it is prescribed instead that they read it as Mou. It is exactly the same as with Jehovah. The loose way in which the name of Christ is used in Christendom is really all wrong. Curiously, I have personally experienced long periods in which I have been unable to mention Christ’s name to anyone because I regard it as too solemn. I have expressed this, also, in the “imaginary psychological construction,” where Quidam says (p. 254 bottom [SV VI 309]) that the girl has pledged herself to him with the name which he does not dare utter, that is, the name of Christ.

  See China, historisch-malerisch,152 Karlsruhe, p. 223. —JP VI 6324 (Pap. X1 A 73) n.d., 1849

  “The Seducer’s Diary” had to come first in order to shed light on the “Imaginary Psychological Construction.” The latter lies in the confinium [border territory] between the interesting and the religious. If “The Seducer’s Diary” had not come out first, the result would have been that the reading world would have found it interesting. “The Seducer’s Diary” was a help, and now it was found to be boring—quite rightly so, for it is the religious. Frater Taciturnus himself also explains this.153—JP VI 6330 (Pap. X1 A 88) n.d., 1849

  [X1 A 377 242] Something about the drama Søstrene paa Kinnekullen154

  In the preface the author says that the idea was not borrowed from a fairy tale, but neither is it his own. This is a curious kind of honesty and perhaps, after all, dishonesty. It is honest to say that it is not his own; it is dishonest not to say more. For if he gave his source and the more pertinent particulars—perhaps, who knows, perhaps he both owed another more than one thinks, and perhaps he used badly that which he borrowed.

  Instead of getting married, a girl becomes avaricious—sits upon the mountain and spins gold—this is detected twentyfive years later at the other sister’s silver wedding (incidentally, it could have been
quaint to make it fifty years because of the golden wedding). The mountain creature explains that it is true not only of this girl but of so many that, lost in something abstract (or the like), they actually do not live but merely waste their lives. The idea is that there is an abstract life that means simply to lose life.

  Fine. That may very well be what was borrowed, the part about the abstract life. What has the poet done with it? He has taken a particular example, and what? Avarice—how thoughtless. If one wishes to pinpoint discerningly the falsity in abstract life, then one must select something essentially innocent. The avaricious maiden’s defect is not abstract life—but avarice.

  Thus the author has picked a wrong example. Thereupon he makes, as they say, a universal of the particular and puts it in the mouth of the mountain creature. But it is precisely that which is not illuminated by the example, for the example was erroneously selected.

  On the other hand, if one wishes to validate the concrete life in contrast to the abstract, then one must see to it that one [x1 A 377 243] does not go too far afield. For the authentic religious life, in contrast to what people generally understand by concretion and what this poet no doubt understands by it—is an abstract life: to suffer, to “be sacrificed.”

  The poet has had no inkling of this at all. For example, he has not grasped how the problem should be placed in proper relation to the ethical, which will forbid not only the sin but also an abstract life, or in contrast to the religious, which in a completely different sense affirms the abstract life. From a categorical point of view, the author has bungled in every respect; his categories are confused.

  Now take a look at the pseudonyms. In the conviction that life, such as most men “live” and live concretely, is wasted, wasted also in this sense of concretion, the attempt here is to achieve the legitimate abstract life. For this purpose there is used: (a) an esthetic eccentric whose very defect is an erroneous abstract life, without being patently sinful—and (b) the ethicist, but in such a way that he points to the religious.