Fear and Trembling; Repetition

by Soren Kierkegaard

Publisher:

Princeton University Press

, 1983

Overview

Presented here in a new translation, with a historical introduction by the translators, Fear and Trembling and Repetition are the most poetic and personal of Søren Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings. Published in 1843 and written under the names Johannes de Silentio and Constantine Constantius, respectively, the books demonstrate Kierkegaard’s transmutation of the personal into the lyrically religious. Each work uses as a point of departure Kierkegaard’s breaking of his engagement to Regine Olsen—his sacrifice of “that single individual.” From this beginning Fear and Trembling becomes an exploration of the faith that transcends the ethical, as in Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac at God’s command. This faith, which persists in the face of the absurd, is rewarded finally by the return of all that the faithful one is willing to sacrifice. Repetition discusses the most profound implications of unity of personhood and of identity within change, beginning with the ironic story of a young poet who cannot fulfill the ethical claims of his engagement because of the possible consequences of his marriage. The poet finally despairs of repetition (renewal) in the ethical sphere, as does his advisor and friend Constantius in the aesthetic sphere. The book ends with Constantius’ intimation of a third kind of repetition—in the religious sphere.

Contents

Top Highlights

“Infinite resignation is the last stage before faith, so that anyone who has not made this movement does not have faith, for only in infinite resignation do I become conscious of my eternal validity,³⁹ and only then can one speak of grasping existence by virtue of faith.” (Page 46)

“If God himself had not willed repetition, the world would not have come into existence.” (Page 133)

“That man was not a thinker.⁵ He did not feel any need to III 62 go beyond faith” (Page 9)

“What is omitted from Abraham’s story is the anxiety” (Page 28)

“Faith is precisely the paradox that the single individual as the single individual is higher than the universal, is justified before it, not as inferior to it but as superior—yet in such a way, please note, that it is the single individual who, after being subordinate as the single individual to the universal, now by means of the universal becomes the single individual who as the single individual is superior, that the single individual as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute.” (Pages 55–56)

Product Details

• Title: Fear and Trembling; Repetition
• Author: Soren Kierkegaard
• Series: Kierkegaard’s Writings
• Volume: VI
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Print Publication Date: 1983
• Logos Release Date: 2018
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Christianity › Philosophy; Sin; Repetition (Philosophy)
• ISBNs: 9781400846955, 0691020264, 9780691072371, 069107237X, 9780691020266, 1400846951
• Resource ID: LLS:KKGWRTGS06
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-04T23:06:23Z

About Soren Kierkegaard

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel; he was also critical of the state and practice of Christianity in his lifetime, primarily that of The Church of Denmark. He is widely considered to be the first existentialist.