Kierkegaard

by Stephen Backhouse

  On its best days the Corsair shows flashes of brilliance, but even Aron knows it is not the ideal vehicle for his skills. Aron has not forgotten his more serious literary and political ambitions. One day in 1844, following an unsatisfying showing at a political event where he and his people were sidelined yet again, Aron shares with Møller his frustrations at being Jewish in Denmark. Møller’s advice is direct and to the point. “With feelings like that,” he says, “one writes a novel.”

  A Jew came out in 1845. It was ascribed to the pseudonym Adolf Meyer, but following Copenhagen literary culture, the people who mattered knew Aron Goldschmidt was the source. The novel, recounting the trials and tribulations of a Jewish man in Denmark, is widely praised. Amongst its admirers is Søren Kierkegaard.

  Søren had long taken an interest in Aron, who was a few years junior to him. The two had met at one of Mrs. Rørdam’s parties, and their relationship developed on the streets where Søren would offer unsolicited advice on everything from Aron’s literary output through to his choices in clothing. On one occasion Aron had stepped out in a particularly garish coat, only to be discreetly taken aside by Søren and given some frank advice. “You are not a riding instructor. One ought to dress like other people.” At the time Aron was mortified, but also grateful for the paternal attention. On another memorable occasion in 1841 Aron had arranged for the Corsair to print a stilted but favourable review of Søren’s On the Concept of Irony. It was the first time Søren was mentioned by the paper, and he was not overly thrilled. The Corsair was generally more suited to caricature and satire, and Søren gently took Aron to task for the clumsy article, encouraging him instead to focus on perfecting his skills at “comic composition.” The advice was kindly delivered, and Aron was initially flattered by the attention. Yet as with the frock coat, the feedback was also a source of humiliation.

  Now, four years later, Aron enjoys an influential position as an editor of his own paper. He is well remunerated. His novel A Jew is well received and widely praised. It has been translated into foreign languages, including English. Søren can boast none of these accolades. Yet here is the Master, once again taking Aron’s arm, indicating another serious—and probably condescending—conversation is about to commence. It’s all very confusing—helpful and infuriating at the same time.

  “Which of your book’s characters do you think was the best delineated?” asks Kierkegaard.

  “The hero,” replies Aron immediately.

  “No,” says Søren, swinging his cane, “it is the mother.”

  Aron is surprised. “I hadn’t even thought about her at all in writing the book.”

  “Ah, I thought so!” says Søren, delighted.

  Søren then asks Aron whether he has read all the positive reviews his book is getting in the Danish press. “What do you think the point of it is?”

  Aron has read them, and he is gratified, but he assumes the kind words are “quite simply intended to praise the book.”

  “No,” Kierkegaard interrupts, “the point is that there are people who want to see you as the author of A Jew, but not as the editor of the Corsair. The Corsair is P. L. Møller.”

  When Aron hears this, he knows the game is about to change. For a while now, P. L. Møller has been angling for a serious position in the university and aspires to a professorship in aesthetics. If his name is openly associated with the scurrilous and populist newspaper it will ruin his reputation. Møller is a large (even “looming”) figure at the Corsair, but it is still Aron who is the proprietary editor, a fact of which he earnestly reminds Søren, but to no avail. Upon hearing about the conversation back in Aron’s office, Møller panics. Is his cover blown according to general opinion, or is this just another one of Søren’s private schemes?

  The answer is a bit of both. Unbeknownst to Aron, Søren has taken him on as a sort of paternalistic project. He describes Aron in his journal as “a bright fellow, without an idea, without scholarship, without a point of view, without self-control, but not without a certain talent and a desperate aesthetic power.” He thinks that Aron’s talents are wasted on the Corsair. Søren has no regard whatsoever for Møller, who was likely the model for the perfidious “Johannes the Seducer” character in Either/Or. Søren clearly thinks Møller is a bad influence on the pliable Goldschmidt. He writes in his journal that it is his goal to separate Goldschmidt from Møller and to take him from the Corsair. “It was my desire to snatch, if possible, a talented man from being an instrument of rabble-barbarism.”

  The conversation with Aron was Søren’s first shot across the Corsair’s bow. Søren saw the paper as a blight on society, its form of irresponsible and unethical satire a source of “irreparable harm.” Yet Søren’s designs to sink the pirate ship while rescuing its captain are not wholly disinterested. As always, he has his own authorship and its reception in mind too.

  Søren had an odd relationship to his critics and reading public. In private conversation and in his journals he fretted and obsessed over every review his books received, and he clearly valued the good opinion even of his adversaries. In the public forum, however, Søren actively repelled attention and tended to avoid being drawn into wider conversations about his books. Not that all his books received the same attention. As a general rule the earliest tomes such as Either/Or got more discussion than the later ones, probably due to (understandable) reader-fatigue at the ever-increasing complexity of the authorship. The salacious material in “The Seducer’s Diary” in Either/Or did not hurt either. Heiberg was muted and patronising in his praise of Either/Or, describing the “Seducer’s Diary” in particular as “disgusting, nauseating and revolting,” a designation he meant as a reproach but which tended to attract more readers than it repelled. Søren was affronted by Heiberg’s review, prompting Victor Eremita to write an equally sarcastic and patronising “thank you” to the literary doyen in the Fatherland four days later. Other negative reviews could expect to receive similar dismissive (pseudonymous) responses. Not all the reception was negative, of course. In fact, the reviewers were often fulsome in their praise. Bishop Mynster (under the pseudonym “Kts”) wrote a good review of Edifying Discourses. Fear and Trembling and Philosophical Fragments got some good notices. To Kierkegaard’s frustration, however, even the positive reviewers were plodding and didactic in their understanding of the works. “No, thank you, may I ask to be abused instead,” he complained in his journal of one enthusiast, “being abused does not essentially harm the book, but to be praised in this way is to be annihilated.” Other positive reviews got even shorter shrift, with Kierkegaard (or a pseudonym) going out of his way to alienate potential fans. A glowing write-up in the newspaper Berlingske Tidende (“Berling’s Times”), which too closely identified Kierkegaard with the pseudonyms, prompted Søren to write indignantly in the rival paper Fatherland. The Times, he sniffs, is fit only for wrapping one’s sandwiches! This was all perfectly in keeping with the campaign of indirect communication. After all, if Søren had been trying to gather followers he would not have created such an elaborate cloud of pseudonyms.

  The Corsair was one of the founding members of the Kierkegaard fan club. It had praised Søren by name in 1841. Either/Or got a favourable nod in 1843. In May 1845 it made positive noises about the pseudonymous books, alluding to Kierkegaard as the author. Later that year Hilarius Bookbinder was lauded, and the November 14, 1845, edition immortalised Victor Eremita, claiming that in the annals of literature, his name “will never die.” That piece of puffery prompted Søren to draft a response in the guise of Victor, asking the Corsair to slay him as it slays everyone else. “To become immortal” through the Corsair, Victor claims, “will become the death of me.” In the end Søren decided to leave this letter in the drawer. However, he would repeat the same sentiment in public the following year.

  From his conversations with Aron and his journals it is evident that there is justice in Søren’s claim that his stand against the Corsair had been brewing for some time. It was, however,
a poison piece from Møller that catalysed the fight. For his part, Møller had been prompted by Kierkegaard’s pointed insinuations to Goldschmidt when he distinguished between the author of A Jew and the driving force behind the Corsair. Møller did not share his friend’s fair-minded approach to Søren’s foibles, and he seems determined to take the ironist down a peg or two before Søren could do the same to him.

  Caricature of Søren by Wilhelm Marstrand about 1870. Even after his death in 1855, Søren was dogged by unflattering portraits—with their curved spines and ill-fitting trousers.

  As part of his bid for academic credibility, Møller had started a literary journal of his own called Gæa. In the December 22, 1845, edition, Møller published a long review, ostensibly of Stages on Life’s Way. It was deliberately structured so as to give the impression the piece represented the views of a number of luminaries from the academy. The review soon expands to take in Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Prefaces, and other works by Søren, including his letters to newspapers. Significantly, despite alluding to various authors, the only name that prominently appears in the piece is that of “S. Kierkegaard.” There are occasional cold words of praise but overall the tone is snide and contemptuous. Møller also steers his review into deeply personal territory, seeing Søren’s relations with Regine in the worst possible light:

  But to spin another creature into your spider web, dissect it alive or torture the soul out of it drop by drop by means of experimentation—that is not allowed, except with insects, and is there not something horrible and revolting to the healthy human mind even in this idea?

  Søren’s sexual life (or lack of same) is crudely alluded to more than once: “He satiates himself by writing; instead of reproducing himself with a foetus a year as an ordinary human being he seems to have a fish nature and spawns.” Charming.

  Cartoon from the Corsair. Søren stands alone while the universe revolves around him.

  Søren was not one to let personal slights and bad reviews pass unnoticed, but the majority of his responses remained in draft form in his writing desk. This would not be one of those times. Søren’s response was swift and decisive. On December 27, 1845, the Fatherland contained a rejoinder from Frater Taciturnus. The lengthy article comes out swinging and lands many blows against P. L. Møller. Søren too was adept at wielding rumours, and he paints an unflattering picture of a Møller who is willing to do anything for money and whose Gæa article falsely insinuates the author into a company of academics with whom he has no business being associated. Regarding Gæa’s interpretation of Søren’s authorship, Søren openly questions Møller’s basic ability to understand what he is reading: a low blow against a man with pretensions to a professorship in aesthetics. The knockout punch comes at the end of the article. Near the finish of the essay, which until now had been all about Møller and the discussion of Stages In Life’s Way in Gæa, the good Frater Taciturnus concludes:

  Cartoon from the Corsair. A grateful member of the public receives the latest offering from Master Kierkegaard.

  Would that I might only get into the Corsair soon… . My superior Hilarius Bookbinder, has been flattered in the Corsair, if I am not mistaken. Victor Emerita has even had to experience the disgrace of being immortalized—in the Corsair! And yet, I have already been there, for ubis spiritus, ibi ecclesia: ubi P. L. Møller, ibi the Corsair.

  “Where the Spirit is, there is the Church: Where P. L. Møller is, there is the Corsair.” With these words, Søren launched his attack on the paper and its “loathsome” assaults “on peaceable, respectable men.” He did so without drawing Goldschmidt into the fray, and by directly naming and shaming Møller instead. It was a swift jab at the ambitious author’s weakest spot, and he meant it to sting.

  Møller’s involvement with the Corsair was an open—yet unspoken—secret. Thus Kierkegaard’s phrase was not a revelation so much as it was an intentional trumpet blast where silence usually reigned. Kierkegaard’s breach of the etiquette surrounding pseudonymity had its desired effect. The public eye latched on to Møller. Even before the literary spat he was a controversial outsider to the professorship position he most coveted. Møller wrote an insincere conciliatory letter to the Fatherland a couple of days later, but the damage was done. It is unlikely that he would have got the post in any case, but as the events transpired, Møller perceived that his calling-out in the Fatherland was the decisive factor. Aron Goldschmidt agreed, writing years later: “Kierkegaard pounced on him with such vehemence, used such peculiar words, had, or seemed to have, such an effect on the public that the professorship, instead of being brought closer by Gæa, was placed at an immeasurable distance.”

  Cartoon from the Corsair. A startled Kierkegaard is confronted on the street by the meek and mild Corsair, cap in hand.

  With nothing left to lose, the Corsair struck back. The January 2, 1846, edition contains a satirical conversation between the editor of the Fatherland and Frater Taciturnus, who plot the downfall of the Corsair and heap praise on “Denmark’s greatest mind, the author of Denmark’s thickest books.” Kierkegaard is named in person in the following issue, where a mocking conversation between Søren and other public figures of Copenhagen soon devolves into a discussion of Søren’s tailor, with the joke that Kierkegaard arranges his trouser legs to be uneven “in order to look like a genius.” The trouser talk continues, accompanied by pictures from cartoonist Peter Klæstrup. Søren’s second and final reply to the Corsair appeared in the Fatherland on January 10, where Frater Taciturnus names Goldschmidt as an editor and likens the Corsair to a streetwalker one must pass by, and as a mercenary paper that attacks people for profit. The allusion brings to mind Møller’s infamous dalliances with prostitutes on the one hand, and Aron would later interpret the “mercenary” jab as an allusion to his Jewishness on the other. Whether or not these were indeed Kierkegaard’s intentions, in any case his letter ends with a renewed plea, “May I ask to be abused—the personal injury of being immortalised by the Corsair is just too much.”

  Cartoon from the Corsair. The notorious legs get another outing.

  Søren stayed silent (at least in public print), but Møller and Goldschmidt continued their onslaught. For the next six months the Corsair would keep up the running joke, with most editions containing multiple caricatures and “comic compositions” at Kierkegaard’s expense. The pieces share a common quality in that they trade in mocking Søren’s awkward physical characteristics and questioning his sanity. Søren is intentionally mistaken for a local eccentric known as “Crazy Nathanson,” and the idea that his clothing (especially the trousers) are ill-fitting is driven home in drawing after drawing. It is the cartoons, and not the prose, that stand out the most from the whole affair. The attempts at humorous writing rarely hit their marks, but Klæstrup’s caricatures are brutal in their ability to take something true about their target and use it against him. One shows Søren’s ungainly attempts to ride a horse, another portrays a lumpen Søren cowering in the doorway of the Corsair’s offices. Another has Søren riding about on the back of a young girl. More pictures show Søren on a pedestal, presenting yet another of his books to a bowing and scraping member of the grateful public. One simply shows a humpbacked figure in silhouette, surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam of Copenhagen life, placing Søren, alone, in his own private universe.

  Cartoon from the Corsair. The picture evokes the image of a real event in Søren’s life when he once attempted to ride a horse.

  The crude satire eked along until the July 17, 1846, edition, but by then it was clear the Corsair’s crew had run out of cannonballs. Goldschmidt and Møller had a falling out over the production of the paper. Møller was excluded from the Corsair, and Goldschmidt was growing weary of the whole affair. A few months previous, Aron had chanced upon Søren on the street. They did not speak. There was nothing more that could be said. Kierkegaard, Aron remembers, “walked past me with an intense and extremely embittered look.” Aron felt “accused and oppressed: the Corsair had tri
umphed in the battle, yet I myself had acquired a false sense of being number one.” Before he got home, Aron made up his mind to give up the Corsair for good. Goldschmidt was eventually able to sell off the paper. He went to live abroad in Germany and Italy before returning to Copenhagen as the (publicly named) founder of the respectable political journal North and South.

  For his part, Møller continued to write sarcastic reviews of Kierkegaard’s works, as well as minor works of poetry of his own. He never received the recognition he thought was owed to him. However dubious and unrealistic Møller’s aspirations actually were to academic respectability, he blamed Kierkegaard for the slight. Møller too left Denmark in 1847. Unlike Aron, he never returned home, dying in obscurity and poverty in 1865.

  The effects of the feud and mocking campaign are more easily stated than understood. For the principal players, the affair was life-changing. For those not directly involved, it can seem but a trifle. This is not only true for modern observers. Even some of Søren’s contemporaries found it difficult to empathise. It was Hans Brøchner’s opinion that Søren exaggerated the effects of the Corsair: “He [Søren] could reflect on a trifle until it assumed world-historical significance, as it were.” However, in his memoirs written thirty years after the fact, Goldschmidt is keen to remind people of the particular historical sweet spot in which the affair of the Corsair occurred. “Accustomed as we are now [1877] to vehement and violent newspaper articles, one will have difficulty in understanding how it could sound in that anxious, quiet time [1846].” Søren’s nephew Troels Frederik agrees, “In our time it is hard to imagine the chilling vulnerability that could be the lot of a victim of such attacks in those days.” The public and popular worlds of Copenhagen in 1846 were on the cusp of change. The moral right of pseudonymity was still largely respected and acted as a bulwark against personal attacks, which wider society frowned on in any case. Furthermore, the political revolutions sweeping Europe were still two years away, with all the ferocious character assassinations and “take no prisoners” rhetoric that come with all culture wars. In Denmark in the ’40s, the convention of naming and shaming in print (a matter of course in the modern age) was still relatively new and shocking.