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NUMBER 65: April 2016
Contents
ANNOUNCEMENTS AND NEWS 2 BOOK REVIEWS The Naked Self: Kierkegaard and Personal Identity, by Patrick Stokes Reviewed by Anthony Rudd 2 Becoming Human by Jamie Lorentzen Reviewed by Michael B. Daugherty 4 Marginal Modernity: The Aesthetics of Dependency from Kierkegaard to Joyce, by Leonardo F. Lisi Reviewed by Troy Wellington Smith 6 ARTICLES Stillness in Kierkegaard’s Confessional Discourse Oliver Norman 7 Interview of Richard Purkarthofer by Kristen Eide-‐Tollefson Introduction by Richard Purkarthofer 13 Editor: Gordon D. Marino Editorial Intern: Les Poling Managing Editor: Eileen Shimota Assistant Editor: Begonya Saez Tajafuerce Assistant Editor: Rafael García Pavón Assistant Editor: Catalina Elena Dobre Assistant Editor: Leo Stan Assistant Editor: Christina Danko
Søren KierkegaardNewsletter
A Publication of the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library
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ANNOUNCEMENTS AND NEWS
Utech Lecture Professor Vincent McCarthy of St. Joseph's University will give the Utech Lecture. He will be drawing from material in his recently published Kierkegaard as a Psychologist (Northwestern University Press). Julia Watkin Memorial Lecture Series Our Julia Watkin Lecturer in November 2016 will be Professor Sergia Hay of Pacific Lutheran. Spring Kierkegaard Lecture Series Professor Peder Jothen, of St. Olaf College, will offer our first spring Kierkegaard lecture on May 5th. The title of his talk is “The Good and the Perverse: Kierkegaard and the Ethics of Beauty.” Professor Anthony Rudd, of St. Olaf College, will deliver the lecture in spring 2017. International Kierkegaard Conference Though an exact date has not been established yet, the Library will host the Eighth International Kierkegaard Conference in the summer of 2017. Dr. Richard Purkarthofer will give the plenary lecture. For more information from the Hong Kierkegaard Library and other news from Kierkegaard scholars and related groups around the world, see the Hong Kierkegaard Library website at http://wp.stolaf.edu/kierkegaard/.
Patrick Stokes. The Naked Self: Kierkegaard and Personal Identity
Oxford: Oxford University Press, Oxford University, 2015.
Reviewed by Anthony Rudd
Associate Professor of Philosophy, St. Olaf College
Patrick Stokes’ new book is not simply an exegetical study of Kierkegaard; it is an impressive attempt to work with Kierkegaard; to draw on his writings in order to address a central philosophical problem. Stokes succeeds, I think, in showing that Kierkegaard has much to contribute to the recent and continuing discussions of personal identity in analytic philosophy; he also shows that approaching Kierkegaard with those debates in mind enables us to get into clearer focus important aspects of Kierkegaard’s thinking. Stokes starts in Chapter One with Locke’s discussion of personal identity in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, still the crucial reference point to which the contemporary analytical literature constantly returns. Locke has usually been taken to have argued that memory is what constitutes personal identity across time. But Stokes claims that Locke’s concerns are more practical than metaphysical. He points out that Locke himself describes personal identity as “a forensic notion”; it has to do with what we can be held responsible for. And he argues that what we can legitimately be praised and blamed for doing is what we can (first-‐personally) remember doing.
This is where Kierkegaard becomes relevant. In Chapter Two Stokes turns to a discussion of Kierkegaard on “contemporaneity”. This is usually regarded as a specifically Christological category (how does the believer become contemporary with the life of Christ?) But Stokes argues that the notion has a wider significance; in particular he is concerned with how I can become “contemporary” with parts of my own past. And this is where he thinks that Kierkegaard has something important to add to Locke. Locke takes it for granted that we have a natural “concern” for any events that we can first-‐personally remember (or anticipate). But, over Chapters Three to Five, and drawing on contemporary philosophers such as Galen Strawson and Marya Schechtman as well as Kierkegaard, Stokes argues that we can become alienated from our pasts (as in Schechtman’s example of the “Sober Matron” who can no longer personally identify with her wild and carefree past as a “Party Girl”) or our futures (as with Derek Parfit’s idealistically socialist young Russian nobleman who wants only to frustrate the reactionary schemes of the crusty conservative he expects that he will become). He is thus led to endorse
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something like Strawson’s distinction between the first-‐personal sense of self (which Strawson designates “I*”) and the temporally extended career of the human person, the psycho-‐physical continuant which in a sense I am, but with which I may or may not identify. This is, as all participants to this discussion seem eager to insist, not a form of Cartesian dualism – but the ontological status of the I* is an issue to which Stokes (and I) will return.
Kierkegaard is presented as having a radical perspective to introduce into this debate. Strawson thinks there is no reason why I* should identify with my past and future (and maybe even that it is better if I* don’t) while Schechtman thinks there are good ethical and prudential reasons to do so. Kierkegaard (as Stokes presents him) would agree with them that such identification does not happen automatically – contemporaneity with oneself is an achievement – but he insists that we have an overriding sorteriological obligation to achieve it. For we stand, at every moment, answerable for all that we have done and been; on the Day of Judgement, I* will be held responsible for whatever actions and desires my life has contained. Hence the imperative here and now for me* to identify with all of my life, in the sense of taking responsibility for it – often enough (usually? always?) that identification will take the form of repentance. (Identification in this sense is not to be confused with endorsement.)
So far it might seem that Kierkegaard offers an – admittedly radical – amendment to neo-‐Lockean theories of our identity across time, with contemporaneity as the “phenomenal ‘glue’” which holds the different moments of our lives together (140). However, in Chapters Six to Eight Stokes argues that, although neo-‐Lockeans can take material from Kierkegaard for their projects, Kierkegaard himself has a much more radical agenda. In the end, he denies, according to Stokes, that the self (I*) can be thought of as having temporal duration at all. Which is not to say that it is either instantaneous or eternal. But the self (as distinct from the temporally extended human being) is as essentially present-‐tense as it is first-‐personal. It is a sort of category mistake to suppose that one can ask about the temporal persistence conditions of a necessarily present tense self. Kierkegaard “insists on seeing the self as an irreducibly present tense matter. To be a self is to relate here and now to the past and the future of the person/human being you are in a particular appropriative way.” (198) In Chapter Seven Stokes uses this notion of a “naked self” to complicate the issue of narrative identity. Following MacIntyre and Ricoeur, a number of contemporary philosophers have argued that our lives across time have the unity of a (part-‐authored) narrative. Some – such as John Davenport and myself – have also argued that Kierkegaard should be regarded as a pioneer of this approach. While agreeing that there is material in Kierkegaard’s corpus to support this view, Stokes argues that the naked self, as it is in the present moment, cannot simply be identified with the subject of my temporally extended life-‐story. Chapter Eight develops the idea of the naked self in explicitly eschatological terms, insisting that, for Kierkegaard, all moments of time are equally close or far from eternity, and that it is the pure present tense subject that stands before this temporally unlocatable eternity. Stokes’ conclusion is that we should learn from Kierkegaard to abandon the ideal of a metaphysics that would seamlessly integrate the first-‐ and third-‐personal, the diachronic and the present tense, the naked self and the temporally extended human person: “Rather than trying to give one master account of what selves ultimately are, Kierkegaard draws our attention to how these different, irreducible perspectives on the self interact.” (217) Chapter Nine offers a helpful concluding summary and some replies to possible objections.
This is a fascinating, challenging book, full of interest for both Kierkegaardians and for those concerned with the issues of personal identity in general. And the conclusions it points to are unabashedly radical. Let me end, though, with a few critical questions. Perhaps I am still hankering too much after a unified “metaphysical’ account, but I remain perplexed by the ontological status of the naked self. Stokes takes Davenport and myself to task for seeing it as no more than an abstraction or a “poetic way of describing the human capacities for self-‐reference or spontaneous self-‐reflection” (186). For Stokes, it is more than that, but it isn’t an objectively specifiable metaphysical entity either. It is said to be a “phenomenal datum” (190) but he also claims that he is not just doing phenomenology (230). But whatever it is, this “naked self” had better be me (that is the whole point of its first-‐person status). It can’t be (Stokes is emphatic about this) a straw-‐man-‐Cartesian “bare locus” so naked as to have no individual characteristics of its own. But nor is it identical with the concrete historical subject with this history and these particular virtues and vices. Perhaps there is something wrong with continuing to ask the question: “Well, what is it, then?” – but I do find that question remains compelling; and unanswered.
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The unabashedly eschatological focus of Stokes’ account will certainly also trouble many readers. He does consider in the Conclusion the objection that might be raised by an atheist who has no belief in a final judgement – and it becomes clear that Stokes himself in fact fits that description. For him, then, the Last Judgement is a thought-‐experiment; one who doesn’t take it literally can still examine his/her life as if it were being judged from the perspective of eternity. Although Stokes does quote me as saying that an atheist can take the idea of immortality as a regulative idea (229) I do now find myself wondering whether or why an atheist should want to do that, even if s/he can do so. I have no doubt that Strawson, for one, would find the idea of thinking of one’s life as a whole as if it were being seen by an eternal judge, as a crazy, damaging and deeply neurotic thing to do. So I think Stokes needs to do more to show why a non-‐believer might want – let alone feel obliged – to take such an idea seriously even as regulative. Moreover, a believer as well might want to ask why God would hold me* answerable for whatever this human person has done throughout his life unless there is some deep metaphysical fact about this person really being me*. If there is no such deep fact, can God be just in holding me* now responsible for what my past self did, especially if I* don’t feel any contemporaneity or identification with that past self? But it is a merit of this rich and provocative book that it leaves us with hard questions to think about. It should challenge both believers and non-‐believers to think more deeply about the question of selfhood – and of what it is that it could make sense to think of as being saved, if there is salvation to be had.
Jamie Lorentzen. Becoming Human
Macon: Mercer University Press, Mercer University, 2015
Reviewed by Michael B. Daugherty
Attorney at Law, St. Paul, MN
In the present age when most people don’t find the time to read a good book, much less write one, Jamie Lorentzen has managed to both. He has not only read four great works of literature, and read them well, but also writes a compelling pointed analysis of all four in his new book, Becoming Human, Kierkegaardian Reflections on Ethical Models in Literature, recently published by Mercer University Press. This book is a great study in how to read a book well.
One might hope that everyone has read Peer Gynt, Moby Dick, The Brothers Karamazov, or Huckleberry Finn, but if you have not, Lorentzen’s carefully directed exegesis will make you wish you had – or if you have read them, his work will convince you that these great works of literature are worth a re-‐read. For those who have never read any one of the four works discussed, do not fear or discount the merit in spending time with Lorentzen’s latest book; in Becoming Human, Lorentzen places his comments about a particular work in context so fully that even this philosophy major turned lawyer (who has never finished Moby Dick, I confess) could follow even his most detailed analysis of the portions of the work under discussion.
Even better yet, those with or without a familiarity with the complicated Dane, Soren Kierkegaard, can follow Lorentzen’s sparing and often indirect reference to the concepts (without the use of complex Kierkegaardian shorthand) espoused by the Christian existential Dane. Of course, if you think you know the Dane, you might well think you ‘get the joke’ laid between the lines by Lorentzen – or do you? One thing you might get, however, from Lorentzen’s book, is a glimpse of the love of literature that many people have at one point in their life, but have misplaced. Much like Kierkegaard, Lorentzen nurtures one’s love of close reading by rewarding such efforts with a view of the ethical as expressed by the authors in the works examined.
Ample illustrations from the lengthy Twain’s Huckleberry Finn or from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, or the behemoth Melville’s Moby Dick (pun intended) allow the works to speak clearly for themselves, but well illustrate his reflections on the ethical compass of each author. Further, Lorentzen takes the time to contextualize the society and the morals (as opposed to contemporaneous ethics) faced head on by the authors
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at the time of their authorship. Going further, he unravels like a ball of twine how scenes within these works of literature may well challenge indirectly not only the beliefs of the reader contemporaneous with the author, but also our beliefs and prejudices as modern readers as well. While not a work of the length of the other three, Peer Gynt is not given short shift in Lorentzen’s analysis. It is perhaps the finest, tightest section of the book’s analysis.
The link between Kierkegaard and the literary criticism is never more evident than in Lorentzen’s analysis of the self-‐deceiver in Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. Kierkegaard’s For Self Examination could be the unmentioned theme of this chapter. While not referenced directly in Chapter 3 of Becoming Human, Kierkegaard’s work on the virtues and pains of revealing oneself to oneself is, well, self-‐evidence. Self-‐deception and unraveling or revealing how one may be deceiving oneself is key to discovering one’s relationship to the ethical.
It is only through intense self examination does Peer Gynt come to see his relationship to, as Lorentzen states, the “infinite gift and ethical task” of forging, finding, and becoming a ‘self’ – or becoming thereby ‘human’. Lorentzen writes: “The onion scene in Act 5 of Peer Gynt suggests the beginning of Peer’s more or less deliberate examination of himself, a stripping himself of himself… This is self-‐examination at its most fundamental.”
More directly, Lorentzen draws the link between the stages of Peer Gynt’s journey toward self-‐examination and Kierkegaard’s works Either/Or and The Sickness unto Death. In Either/Or, Lorentzen discusses, the painful emptiness of the aesthetic life is disclosed, and Peer Gynt’s life is a prime example as well. The deeper, or the more layers of the onion (or his ‘self’) Peer Gynt unravels, the deeper his despair. The depths of despair encountered in confronting the mis-‐relationships of the self to the self is also examined in Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death. Lorentzen highlights that Peer Gynt is confronting the difference between being a self and choosing one’s self.
In his interview with Christian Humanist Profiles on his book, Becoming Human, Lorentzen elaborates on the difference between being a self and choosing a self: “Peer Gynts actions and foibles expose us foolish mortals, and allows Ibsen as satirist to help us see ourselves [and] improve ourselves ethically.” Further Lorentzen points out in his interview, Ibsen leaves us at the end of the play with the ambiguity of whether Peer Gynt has really evolved, or not -‐ not unlike Lorentzen himself in his discussion of the ethical in literature and its potential impact on the reader in Becoming Human.
Here is a prime example. Lorentzen asks: “Has Peer slayed his selfish self by the end of the play? Or has the ghost of his enabling and loving mother Aase descended in the spirit of Solveig, allowing Peer to continue to sleep and dream his life away?” Lorentzen calls this a modern spin on the nature of redemption – just how is one redeemed, and don’t we all crave assurance that we have been redeemed? Lorentzen asks: “Don’t we want, in effect, to be deceived by an artificial ending¸ be it happy or sad?...Fortunately, Ibsen is too wise to offer an easy or two-‐dimensional fairy tale ending.” In Becoming Human, there are no artificial endings, no cocktail party synopsis of each book discussed, leaving such matters to the individual reader.
It’s this aspect of the work that compels me to give Lorentzen’s new work my heartiest recommendation. I continue to be struck by the questions raised and left unanswered in his analysis. Lorentzen deftly and consistently leaves his ethical opinions out of it. It’s not that the work has no point of view – but the questions raised appear to be the point, and like any good read of a book, leave the reader to ponder and answer many questions for themselves. At least at the end of the day, Lorentzen’s book leaves the reader room and motivation to do just that.
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Leonardo F Lisi. Marginal Modernity: The Aesthetics of Dependency from Kierkegaard to Joyce
New York: Fordham University Press, Fordham University, 2012.
Reviewed by Troy Wellington Smith
Ph.D. Student, University of California, Berkeley
In the disciplines of philosophy and theology, Kierkegaard is known foremost as the progenitor of existentialism and neo-‐orthodoxy, respectively. Although he repeatedly referred to himself as “a poet” (“en Digter”), Kierkegaard has no comparable claim to fame in literature. Kierkegaard’s significance to literary studies has been obscured in the Anglophone world by a predominantly theological reception of his writings1 until recent decades with the publication of books such as Roger Poole’s Kierkegaard: The Indirect Communication (1993), Joakim Garff’s Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography (English trans. 2005) and Eric Ziolkowski’s The Literary Kierkegaard (2011). One of the latest works to cast Kierkegaard in this literary light is Leonardo F. Lisi’s Marginal Modernity: The Aesthetics of Dependency from Kierkegaard to Joyce (2013), which makes an ingenious and compelling case for Kierkegaard’s centrality to the canon of European modernism. Unlike previous studies, which have been content to trace and retrace Kierkegaard’s existential motifs in the modernists and proto-‐modernists, Lisi takes a rarefied and intrepid route to discover an alternative to the respective aesthetics of autonomy and fragmentation that have heretofore dominated the discussion of modernism. Termed the “aesthetics of dependency,” this new model is based on the fourfold relational structure with which Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Anti-‐Climacus defines a human being in The Sickness unto Death.
In chapter 1, Lisi historically contextualizes his aesthetics of dependency by contrasting it with the German idealist tradition from which modernism’s aesthetics of autonomy emerged. Whereas idealist aesthetics conceived of the artwork as an independent organic entity, the avant-‐gardes, conversely, demanded the fragmentation of the work of art in order to reintroduce it to the everyday. Mediating between these two poles, Lisi contends that certain modernist texts are grounded by an organizing principle, as per the aesthetics of autonomy, but that this principle transcends the logic of the text itself, thereby producing a sense of fragmentation which, though ultimately illusory, nonetheless resembles that of the avant-‐gardes. Anti-‐Climacus’s definition of a human being in The Sickness unto Death, more than being merely analogous, is prototypical of this aesthetics of dependency. On the one hand, according to the pseudonym, the human being is made coherent in his or her relation to God, but, on the other hand, this relation cannot be subjected to logic or language; it can only be experienced
In a bold turn against the critical tradition, Lisi, in chapter 2, recasts Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s work as a project to mediate the period’s contemporaneous feudalist and capitalist value systems through an idealist aesthetics. To illustrate this point, Lisi offers an insightful reading of Heiberg’s vaudeville The Danes in Paris. The chapter closes by claiming that Heiberg’s failure to become a canonical author on the stage of world literature was not due to his alleged disinterest in politics; on the contrary, he was all too aware of the looming rise of capital. What led to his increasing irrelevance was that the forces of modernity continued to mount to a point at which a compromise between the values of feudalism and capitalism became impossible. The next generation of authors, Lisi notes, would register this development in the form of aesthetic fragmentation.
Accordingly, Lisi turns to Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt in chapter 3, contrasting it with the playwright’s earlier St. John’s Night, a vaudeville beholden to Heibergian idealist aesthetics. Peer Gynt forcefully breaks with Heiberg’s project of the organic artwork, presenting a world hopelessly fragmented by modern capital. While earlier critics have presupposed direct influence and drawn thematic parallels between Peer Gynt and Kierkegaard’s oeuvre,
1. Nonetheless, this tendency has not prevented numerous Anglophone writers from finding inspiration in Kierkegaard, e.g., W. H. Auden, David Lodge, Walker Percy, John Updike, and Richard Wright, to name just a few.
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Lisi locates the authors’ affinity in a shared adverse reaction to the Heiberg school.2 This, however, is only a negative affinity; Kierkegaard rejects Heiberg for an aesthetics of dependency, whereas Ibsen, in Peer Gynt, spurns him for the fragmentation of the avant-‐gardes.
Ibsen does not achieve an aesthetics of dependency until A Doll’s House, in which Nora, an unreflective housewife, unexpectedly leaves her doltish husband in the play’s final act. In chapter 4, Lisi reiterates the critical controversy surrounding this departure and, in my opinion, puts it to rest by reconceiving of Nora’s act in terms of an aesthetic that is neither one of autonomy nor of fragmentation, but instead is one of dependency. This is to say that the text, in its structural logic, cannot justify this turn of events, and yet both it and even Nora herself point to something that transcends them both.
Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 reveal a Scandinavian (i.e., a Kierkegaardian and/or Ibsenian) aesthetics of dependency in texts at the core of European modernism, i.e., Henry James’s The Wings of the Dove, Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s The Lord Chandos Letter, James Joyce’s “The Dead,” and Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Like the preceding chapters, these are all written with an élan suited to the excitement that accompanies all genuine discoveries. In addition to the German idealists, Lisi engages with a panoply of thinkers from the twentieth and twenty-‐first centuries, e.g., Peter Brooks, Stanley Cavell, Roman Jakobson, Georg Lukács, and Slavoj Žižek. Lisi’s familiarity with the secondary literature is extensive, and he wisely confines his lengthier digressions on it to the endnotes, so as not to detract from the overall thrust of his own argument.
I am afraid the broad strokes of this short review cannot possibly do justice to Lisi’s work in all of its richness and nuance. Should you desire a more detailed analysis, I recommend Michael Stern’s review article “Centering the Marginal: Leonardo Lisi on Scandinavian Modernism” in volume 87, number 2 (summer 2015) of Scandinavian Studies. But first and foremost I must refer you to Lisi’s book itself for its dramatic re-‐centering of the modernist canon on the geographically peripheral Kierkegaard and Ibsen.
Stillness in Kierkegaard’s Confessional Discourse
Oliver Norman
Undergraduate Student, University of Poitiers
1. Introduction
At the heart of the Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions is a fundamental distinction between the phenomena of silence and stillness. So what is stillness? Why is it essentially different from silence? When I think of stillness do I not picture an absence of noise, in other words, calmness? Silence and stillness are both generally used as synonyms and are undeniably linked. However, Kierkegaard differentiates between that which he names stilhed (stillness) and taushed (silence).
The presence of the term stilhed is of paramount importance in the Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions and most prominently in the confessional discourse.3 Does this mean that stillness is a purely confessional category and therefore fundamentally in relation to sin?
2. If I were to make one minor criticism of this thoroughly outstanding study, it would be that Lisi does not include the Goethean Bildungsroman as part of the program of idealist aesthetics that Heiberg, qua critic, espoused. This point is significant since Kierkegaard (as Garff has pointed out) once held Andersen to the standards of the Bildungsroman in his review of Only a Fiddler, and even tried his hand at the genre himself in Either/Or. It was only after Heiberg failed to appreciate his attempt at a Bildungsroman that Kierkegaard turned from an aesthetics of autonomy to an aesthetics of dependency. 3. A fact corroborated by both the Hong translation and the original Danish
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This work will focus on the use of stillness in the Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, and will seek to ask what stillness is, how it is expressed in these discourses but also how it relates to Kierkegaard’s conception of the individual and of faith. More generally speaking, I will also try to examine the main distinctions between silence and stillness in these Three Discourses.
First of all I will try to analyze the apparent shift from the outer stillness of the doxical and poetic view to an internal form of stillness in the Three Discourses, and more specifically in On the occasion of a confession. Then, I will elaborate upon the fundamental religious nature of the inner stillness found in these discourses before trying to define stillness in its relationship to silence.
2. The shift from the doxical view of stillness as an external reality to an internal state
What is Stillness? It is not an external reality, an exterior calmness; rather it is an internal and introverted storm.
“What fair weather is for the sailor, going on living at the same pace with others and with the generation is for the individual person, but the decision, the dangerous moment of collecting himself when he is to withdraw from the surroundings and become alone before God and become a sinner – this is a stillness that changes the ordinary just as the storm does”4
Against the popular imagery of the calm sea being still, Kierkegaard posits that stillness, true, genuine stillness, is the complete opposite. True stillness provokes a change in us. It is not the external experience the romantics crave, but an internal state.
If we are to use a metaphor for stillness itself we should not opt for the immediate perception of calm that the sea may provide. Rather, stillness should be considered a storm. This conception of stillness enters into stark opposition with Kierkegaard’s own qualification of it, or should I say his aesthete's conception of it in Either-‐Or where on multiple occasions stillness is referred to as an attribute of the night (nattens stilhed) or of the forest: one could say that here, Kierkegaard is trying to distance himself from his pseudonyms but I believe there is something much more fundamental at work. I believe it could be said that, just as despair, stillness has multiple forms.5 Stillness for the aesthetic mind, for the poet and especially for the romantic poet is often if not always associated with the forest and with night: sanctuaries far away from the noise and agitation of modern life, retreats in which you can hide from movement and be surrounded by mere stillness.
Even though the Danish term stilhed is the same in Either-‐Or and in Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, the stance Kierkegaard takes is very different. Stillness for the aesthete is an external reality, a part of nature that is observed by the subject who can only find himself in it but never be it. The difference between this vision and the one presented in these discourses is that the latter aim not at some externality but rather at an internal state. This approach to stillness almost seems to indicate a form of ataraxy or even of meditation: indeed what is meditation if not searching stillness?
“The value of a meditation is, of course, always dubious; at times it can help one come to what is crucial, and at times it can also hinder – just as a short preliminary run can be of help at the crucial point of a jump but a preliminary run of several miles would even prevent it.”6
Kierkegaard himself was well aware of the proximity of his conception of stillness and some kind of meditation. Indeed they are both introspections in the strict sense. Both stillness and meditation consist in the individual going into himself, shutting out the agitation of the external world: even if that world around him seems still! The romantics searching for stillness in the external world forgot that even if that form of stillness is found it is
4. S. Kierkegaard, Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, trans. Edna H. & Howard V. Hong, Princeton, 1993, p. 36 (SV1 V 200) 5. In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard says that Despair is tredobbelt (literally “triple”), stillness in this regard would be at least twofold. 6. S. Kierkegaard, Ibid, p. 15 (SV1 V 183)
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not genuine stilhed which can only be internal. Stillness however, unlike meditation, cannot be dubious if it is true stillness. A person can meditate for the wrong purposes: to attain joy, an independence from worldly passions (i.e. an escape from worldly passions7)… Stillness can only be attained for the right reason because all else is but mere agitation of the mind. This is not to say that stillness is easy, that it can be attained simply because one wants to attain it. To want something, to wish for something is to follow a path, is to overcome obstacles on that path, but nonetheless the path is still there. Stillness has no path, it has no place to go, no external object of stillness. Stillness is a “biding place” (Bedested, place of prayer). Stillness is not the road. To be still is to stop, is to stand still. Only through standing still does one come to realize true stillness, and this is what essentially makes it the most difficult task for us. We all get caught up in the constant flow, the constant movement of everyday life that we do not stop, take a moment and stay still. Stillness paralyzes the seeker, but not in a negative paralysis, indeed this paralysis is what is needed. Standing still is of course thought of as something easy but “it is much easier to look to the right and to the left than to look into oneself, much easier to haggle and bargain just as it is also much easier to underbid than to be silent – but the more difficult is still the one thing needful”.8 Although the term here used is “silent” (taus), one could say the same of silence as of stillness on this occasion. The world tempts us with its agitations, with its routine, with its words. Stillness comprises none of these. Why on earth would we want to be still? Why would we want to escape from the agitation of modern life and look inward? Because it is the “one thing needful”?
So now it seems clear that stillness in the Three Discourses is an internal state. However, how can Kierkegaard claim this internal state is a storm? One easy answer would be only to say that Kierkegaard wanted to be in stark opposition with the doxical idea of calm, but this is not satisfactory. After all, this stillness “changes the ordinary”. What does Kierkegaard mean? He means that stillness is not a sameness, it is not a state out of which we return unscathed. Stillness, genuine stillness changes us. The storm metaphor merely signifies a rupture in the continuity of the ordinary; stillness disrupts my everyday life by throwing me head first into something unusual for me. For one living in the midst of the noise of the world, sudden stillness is anxiogenic – creates anxiety. It disrupts the continuum of my ordinary life and changes me. Stillness is the storm that throws me into the unknown, throws me before the unknown, before God.
Therefore, stillness is not an external reality of the world; it is not in the forests, not in the calm seas, not in the midnight hour. It is an internal state, a state of change that hits us like a storm, which we try to flee…
In all of this one objection arises: if stillness is an internal state, if it is introversion in the strict sense, how is it possible that this state could change me? How could something of myself change my self? Without a doubt I conclude that this stillness is indeed a state of Man, a state in which he can place himself – albeit with difficulty; but in this stillness Man has access to something that is not he, something that exceeds him. This is the prerequisite for the storm of stillness. And what is this other-‐than-‐man in stillness, this other that changes him? What is it if not God?
3. The inherent religious nature of genuine stillness
It is only when Kierkegaard evokes a religious sacrament -‐here confession-‐ that he brings the religious into stillness. We have already mentioned that the Three Discourses is not the only work in which the Danish term stilhed is used by Kierkegaard; however, the Hong translation almost exclusively translates stilhed by stillness in this work.9 So then, what are the religious implications of stillness for Kierkegaard? In stillness we are all lone sinners before God.
7. It is this escape-‐mentality that characterizes the un-‐earnest individual for Kierkegaard especially in relation to Death (cf. At a graveside) 8. S. Kierkegaard, Ibid. p. 31 9. Whereas in others the term is translated as quietness, privacy, secrecy, silence or stillness (all of which are completely justified translations of the Danish term in the given contexts). This is not a diatribe against the Hong translation, far from it; the choice of the term stillness is very efficacious in this discourse.
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“There is a stillness in which every human being becomes guilty”10 What can Kierkegaard possibly mean by a stillness in which every human being is guilty? Before God I am guilty, I am a sinner. I do not need to quantify all the misdeeds I have done or not done, I do not need to compare myself with others; I need to consider myself a sinner. Comparison is an evasion from the stillness in which I find myself isolated. In vain, I search for some kind of link to the external world, in vain I want to break free from this solitary prison, alas, all is in vain.
Kierkegaard’s reflection on stillness in the Three Discourses can only be understood through the prism of the Individual, the Enkelt. Granted, all can attain stillness, but stillness is not a general phenomenon, it does not care for the general, it cares only for the Individual. It seems quite natural that the introversion of stillness is individual for how could I go into someone else’s mind and find stillness there? But even more interesting than this is the religious need for this individuality in stillness. Why did Kierkegaard choose the occasion of a confession to evoke this fundamental problem? Because in confession one is alone with the priest or pastor.11 Likewise in stillness one is alone before God. Kierkegaard says, “In God’s house there is peace [Fred], but deepest within the inclosure [det Omfredede] there is a closed room. The one who goes there seeks stillness; the one who sits there is in stillness…”12 This closed room is none other than the confessional. In this one short phrase, Kierkegaard sums up two of his main ideas for his discourse on confession: primo stillness is the problem of the Individual – the “one” here mentioned, and deuzio, that stillness has an inherent religious character.
Why is stillness so important in the sacrament of penance? Because only in stillness can I assume full responsibility for my sins. In the agitation of the world we do not have the time to think about our sins, we are caught up in the momentum of the times, distracted by even the most insignificant occurrence. In stillness, our attention is fixed, riveted on ourself. Only when our attention is thusly riveted can we think of our sins, can we know God. When we go to confession we seek the privacy and stillness of the confessional. Is it not this very stillness and privacy that is the “biding place” on the road to salvation?
This still does not resolve the question of why I must be an individual in stillness, why I myself must become a sinner in order to know God. The solution is quite simple indeed in the God-‐relationship; one stands before the Judge, before the Creator, not as a member of a multitude but as a man, a single man, a single individual. I act, I act alone. The evasion is to think that because someone “made me do it” I am free of all blame, that I do not have to take responsibility as an individual. However, in stillness I am alone. I am alone before the act I committed. In stillness I am alone judged by God. This is why we fear stillness; we run from it, we are afraid of facing God and especially facing ourselves: indeed if in stillness we are judged by God, is it not also the case that through this judgment we can see who we really are? We tell ourselves that stillness does not exist and thereby replace “God’s voice delivering judgment in stillness, [with] a nature-‐echo from the crowd, a confused collective scream, a general opinion in which one, out of cowardice, fearing for oneself, is not alone”.13 But “Whoever says that this stillness does not exist is merely making noise”.14 The reality of stillness is self evident to anyone who has searched for it within him or herself. The religious content of stillness is something we can run from but never escape.
In stillness we must face God and admit our sinful nature. However, it is not merely a question of quantifying how many or qualifying how bad. In stillness we do not only become sinners, rather we do not only accept we are sinners. In stillness we must become “the greatest of sinners”.15 In stillness comparisons are rendered useless, “all comparison is worldly”16 as Kierkegaard himself says. God has no use for the comparison of my sin to the sin of others. When Kierkegaard says that I am to become the greatest of sinners he means purely and simply that I
10. S. Kierkegaard, Ibid, p. 14 (SV1 V 181) 11. It is true that protestant confession is not the same as catholic confession however, the way Kierkegaard talks of confession in his discourse seems to reflect an isolated conversation, a one-‐on-‐one with the pastor analogous to the catholic practice. 12. S. Kierkegaard, Ibid, p. 9 (SV1 V 178) 13. S. Kierkegaard, Ibid, p. 11 (SV1 V 179) 14. S. Kierkegaard, Ibid, p. 11 (SV1 V 179) 15. S. Kierkegaard, Ibid, p. 31 (SV1 V 195) 16. S. Kierkegaard, Ibid, p. 31 (SV1 V 195)
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cannot compare with others. Stillness isolates me from the masses and removes the possible comparison of sin. If I cannot compare, I cannot be more or less sinful than the average man. Therefore, I must suppose and I must above all things accept that I am the greatest of all sinners. Stillness has isolated me into myself; I am at a point of no return where the world melts away and only my relationship to God matters. Kierkegaard tells us that faced with God’s judgment the individual “will be conscious of himself as the single individual and of the essential magnitude of the sin within himself”.17 This illustrates the fundamental power of stillness, the power of revelation.
Let us not misunderstand the formulation: revelation is not here understood as Revelation in the biblical sense; it merely means that in stillness things are revealed for what they truly are. And yet, for revelation to operate in stillness one needs both to be isolated and to be faced with God. First of all, one needs to be isolated. Stillness takes us away from the diversion of everyday life, this much we have said. However by removing the subject from everyday life it does more than just isolate him. In stillness the subject is revealed to himself as that which he truly is, a single individual, as the Enkelt. Why is the religious needed? We can understand why isolating ourselves from the crowd can give us the knowledge that I am an individual subject.18 Religiousness is needed because of stillness’s fundamental revelatory function. Through stillness Kierkegaard can show the truth of sin, can show that sin is not a general term applicable to any offence and variable in importance. Only through the isolating factor of stillness can sin reveal itself for what it truly is: the affair not of the general but of the single individual. This revelation is only possible through the direct judgment of God that Man receives through stillness. If I am alone before God then I receive my judgment directly, and only this direct judgment is powerful enough to make me accept my sin for what it is. We could compare this to what Kierkegaard says of demonic silence in the Concept of Anxiety.19 Here the process is almost identical and one could speak of the demonic nature of stillness. God judges us but Kierkegaard never has God talk to us, never has Him tell us His judgment. I believe this to be of the utmost importance. In stillness God judges silently, the demonic power of silence operates only through stillness. When the guilty man comes in front of a judge who does nothing but stare at him without saying a word he endures silence, but he is also forced inward, forced into a quasi state of stillness. This of course is only a quasi state because the stillness is forced upon him by another human being; it is an imperfect reflection of genuine stillness. In the God-‐relation, Man is never forced into stillness; Kierkegaard says “If anyone feels made to pause in a wrong way at the task, then let him throw away the discourse lest the person who runs faster be detained by the slow one”.20 This enigmatic phrase affirms that the task of stillness is not one that can be thrust upon us like demonic silence. Still, the two share the same revelatory function, both demonic silence and demonic stillness – or rather holy stillness – bring forth the truth out of the individual. Here the parallel ends for, in demonic silence Man must have a guilty conscience, however in stillness man must be pure of heart and acknowledge his essential guilt, have a guilty soul. Demonic silence can be thrust upon me, I can only seek stillness myself… Both reveal something to me but demonic silence reveals for to punish, stillness reveals sin in order to acknowledge my individual guilt before God. Stillness reveals that I, as an individual subject, as an Enkelt, am the greatest of all sinners, and I fear it because of this.
The importance of stillness for Kierkegaard is that it is representative of that which Man flees; it is that which he wants and does not want. Man wants to be close to God, to assure himself God’s grace but Man is not ready to do the necessary work in order to know God. It is not stillness per se that we fear, it is God’s judgment in stillness, it is God’s silent judgment in stillness. Therefore stillness is inherently religious, not because it encloses us into ourselves – Kierkegaard has a term for that, indesluttethed, inclosing reserve21 – but because it puts us in relation with God through the medium of sin, only in stillness do I unite the prerequisites to know God, namely purity of heart and consciousness of my guilt as the greatest of sinners. 17. S. Kierkegaard, Ibid, p. 31 (SV1 V 195) 18. Continental philosophy has been particularly attuned to this problem: One could easily argue that Descartes is revealed to himself as the “I” in stillness, just as much as Pascal realizes the truth of the human condition in stillness… 19. Kierkegaard says that a man with a guilty conscience cannot endure silence and is thereby deceived into telling the truth by a judge who simply looks at him and says nothing. 20. S. Kierkegaard, Ibid, p. 15 (SV1 V 183) 21. S. Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death, trans. Edna H. & Howard V. Hong, Princeton, 1983, p. 63
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4. The essential distinction between stillness (stilhed) and silence (taushed)
A more general question remains, one that scholars have rarely addressed, namely how is stillness distinct from silence? Hereinabove, stillness has been compared to demonic silence because both have a revelatory function. Why then are stillness and silence so different if their functions are the same?
From a purely textual and linguistic point of view, the Danish distinguishes between silence, Taushed, and stillness, or Stilhed. Silence is literally the absence of speech: when I am not talking I am silent, whereas stillness seems to be the absence of movement. However, Kierkegaard scholars and translators alike seem to annul the fundamental difference between Taushed and stilhed. One of P. H Tisseau’s footnotes contains an important insight into his approach to the translation of the term stilhed, indeed in the French edition of On the Occasion of a Confession, Tisseau writes “the words 'silence' and 'peace' both translate the same Danish word stilhed which means both 'silence' and 'immobility' ('interior peace')”.22 Here, Tisseau gives us the true definition of stilhed, immobility, stillness is when one does not move.
Let us consider confession in itself for a minute: in the confessional do I seek stillness or silence? It seems clear that I do not seek silence for I talk to the priest/pastor who then talks back: silence would be an outrageous reaction for a clergyman for it is ambiguous. Indeed, silence could be the demonic silence of judgment… in the case of the demonic silence of judgment, the guilty party would be made to feel inferior to the priest/pastor who has the power to forgive him. However this is not what is sought when the sinner confesses, he does not look for a condescending silence that belittles him vis-‐à-‐vis another human being: “There is no one who accuses except one’s thoughts”.23 Kierkegaard insists that all humans share the same life task, that is the acknowledgment of sin in stillness (not in silence). Therefore the priest who would sit in judgmental silence forgets that he too has the same task as the sinner who asks for absolution. Id est, the priest who silently revels in the power of absolution he possesses forgets that he too is responsible before God:24 Therefore the sinner does not seek silence, for silence alienates him and belittles him in his relationship to another human being whereas stillness places us before God who is the only silent one in the relation.25 Stillness is not silence because silence belongs to a posterior stage. One must first find stillness, and then – and only then – be before the silence of the “Holy One”.
Furthermore, Kierkegaard affirms that in stillness there can be talking, the priest talking is a part of stillness, it is the inward turn towards the silent judgment of God: “Yes, even when there is speaking, you are indeed the one who is speaking with yourself through the speaker’s voice”.26 Silence being the posterior stage, there can be speech in stillness. However this speech is not noise. Indeed, we must draw a clear distinction between the speech one hears in stillness, and noise. In the stillness of the confessional, there is no noise, or at least there shouldn’t be any noise. In stillness, I do not merely hear what the priest is saying, I embody it, I appropriate it. Only when the priest’s words are appropriated can they be of any value in stillness. In my individual isolation, the words of the priest can only come to me if they are my words, if I embody those words, if I appropriate them. Therefore stillness is distinct from silence in the sense that in silence no words are heard, in stillness however, words permeate through the still subject but only insofar as he appropriates them. Without appropriation the priest’s words are a noise trying to disturb the stillness, trying to distract you from your task. By refusing to distinguish between silence and stillness one loses the inherent nature of both.
Silence and stillness are therefore distinct in the Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, however stillness, genuine stillness cannot exist without silence. Where the misunderstanding lies is in the fact that we often
22. “Note du Traducteur” in A l’occasion d’une confession in Oeuvres completes de Søren Kierkegaard, trans. P-‐H. Tisseau & Else-‐Marie Tisseau, Editions de l’Orante, Paris, 1979, p. 8 : Whilst Tisseau’s note is insightful, it still considers stilhed as a synonym of taushed. 23. S. Kierkegaard, Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, trans. Edna H. & Howard V. Hong, Princeton, 1993, p. 10 (SV1 V 178) 24. Responsible in its etymological meaning: response = answer ergo answerable to God 25. Indeed God does not verbally judge us but reveals our essential guilt through his silent judgment (cf. supra) 26. S. Kierkegaard, Ibid, p. 10 (SV1 V 178)
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consider silence and stillness to be the same thing. Stillness can be attained without being in silence, whilst being surrounded by noise. However once in stillness one must face the silence of God’s judgment, of “God’s voice delivering judgment in stillness”.27 God’s voice? Have I just contradicted everything I have just said? How fickle are the tricks of language, God’s voice is silent, it is not heard as one hears everyday noise: “God’s Word cannot be heard, and if in order to be heard in the hullabaloo it must be shouted deafeningly with noisy instruments, then it is not God’s Word; create silence!”.28 Therefore, silence and stillness are intrinsically linked. Whilst we must distinguish between the two notions just as Kierkegaard himself did, stillness, genuine stillness, cannot exist without silence. And, likewise, God's silent judgment can only exist through the internal state of stillness the individual has put himself in.
5. Conclusion
What is stillness? What are the religious implications of it? How does it relate to silence in the Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions? Stillness cannot be the exterior stillness the poets assimilate with nature. Instead it is a storm that changes us when all the noise of the world has been shut out, produced by the non-‐human in stillness, by God.29 It is in this storm of stillness that Man acknowledges his essential sin, that the subject becomes the greatest of sinners. In his isolation, he is thrust before God’s silent judgment. Silence and stillness do not represent the same thing but are two stages of the same inward movement, which is confession. As of yet little scholarly work has concentrated solely on the problem of stilhed and has viewed silence (taushed) only as a reformulation of the problem of communication. However, in his Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, the focus is solely and entirely placed on the individual in his relation to God. Stillness is not a communicational category, it is a religious one wherein Man relates himself to himself and in that relation relates to God.
Works Cited
Kierkegaard, Søren. Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions. Ed. and trans. Howard V. & Edna H. Hong, Princeton, 1993
Kierkegaard, Søren. Tre Taler ved taenkte leiligheder, in Kierkegaard Samlede Vaerker, Vol. 5, Copenhagen, Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag, 1902
Kierkegaard, Søren. Trois discours sur des circonstances suppose ᷇es, in Oeuvres completes de Søren Kierkegaard. Trans. P-‐H. Tisseau & Else-‐Marie Tisseau, Editions de l’Orante, Paris, 1979
Kierkegaard, Søren. Either-‐Or I & II. Ed. and trans. Howard V. & Edna H. Hong, Princeton, 1988 Kierkegaard, Søren. The Sickness Unto Death. Ed. and trans. Howard V. & Edna H. Hong, Princeton, 1983 Kierkegaard, Søren. For Self-‐Examination, Ed. and trans. Howard V. & Edna H. Hong, Princeton, 1991
A Soothing Litany on Things Close at Hand: Some Thoughts Concerning Howard V. Hong’s Last Rare Book Collection
Interview of Richard Purkarthofer by Kristen Eide-‐Tollefson
After Howard V. Hong’s death on March 16, 2010, the personal collection and “effects,” the working papers of Howard V. and Edna Hong, were brought—appropriately boxed—to the Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College, where Howard Hong (HVH) had been on faculty for four decades. With the generous support of the Hong family and its managing trustee of the estate, Erik Hong, the collection was put on loan to the St. Olaf College Library, where it was stored, documented, catalogued, and appraised. The appraisal was done at the end of 2010 by Kristen Eide-‐Tollefson, co-‐founder and present owner of The Book House in Dinkytown, one of the country’s classic university-‐area bookstores. Kristen was part of the appraisal team for the first professional evaluation of the Hong’s working collection at St. Olaf and did a number of updates and supplemental appraisals 27. S. Kierkegaard, Ibid, p. 11 (SV1 V 179) 28. S. Kierkegaard, For Self-‐examination, trans. Edna H. & Howard V. Hong, Princeton, 1991, p. 47 (SV1 XII 334) 29. God is of course non-‐human for He is the supra-‐human
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for HVH through subsequent decades. For the initial appraisal, Kristen was supported by now-‐retired Hong Kierkegaard Library Assistant Curator and Special Collections Librarian, Cynthia Lund and Richard Purkarthofer. A part of the collection was immediately donated, whereas another part—addressed as the HVH Rare Books Collection—was put on loan to the Hong Kierkegaard Library.
One section of the books contained in the HVH Rare Books Collection contributes to the reconstruction of Kierkegaard’s own library. There are also reference works that are significant for investigations into Kierkegaard’s sources. Other items pertain to the intellectual context which was formative for Kierkegaard’s work as an author or pertain to the early reception of Kierkegaard’s texts. Of special interest is a set of eight wooden Humidors: cigar boxes, which HVH duly depleted of their delicate content and refilled with books. These humidors and their contents were consciously arranged to document the development and growth of H. and E. Hong’s interest in and work with Kierkegaard. Thus they document the history and growth of the Kierkegaard Library and its special collections. These boxes also contain several “presentation copies,” i.e. books that Kierkegaard had had bound according to his own taste and which he would occasionally present as gifts, sometimes with personal dedications. Among the many significant items of special interest, I want to point out the handwritten lecture notes from Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg’s lectures on the history of philosophy. This manuscript is significant not only on account of the well-‐known influence Trendelenburg had on Kierkegaard, but also because of his important role for 19th century philosophy in general. Since these lectures have not been published yet, the manuscript will be helpful for Trendelenburg research to come. These Humidors, together with their contents, constitute a kind of “biblio-‐biography” or “bio-‐bibliography,” as Kristen Eide-‐Tollefson poignantly has said.
Another section of the donation comprises Kierkegaard editions from 1855 to 1901. Their value for analytical bibliography is less than original and second editions. Up to now, it was generally assumed that the items of this group of texts were not relevant for textual criticism, since they were printed after Kierkegaard’s death, and no critical edition to date has taken them into account. This holds also true for the most recent, so-‐called historical-‐critical Danish edition. However, at least two of these later editions are of importance for textual criticism. Further research may yet bring other instances to light. Furthermore, some of these items must have been the source of translations (at least into Swedish and German, possibly Dutch and others) and are significant for the study of the history of reception and translation in these languages. Multiple copies contribute to the significance for analytical bibliography and for investigations into the history of bookbinding and the sociology of reception.
The most extensive section of the HVH Rare Book Collection donation encompasses original editions and later editions made in Kierkegaard’s lifetime. Mention must be made of the HVH-‐Rhode Set, which is the most comprehensive set of primary Kierkegaard editions, since it contains all of them in their various forms (although there might exist a few later editions of some issues of The Moment which are not included in this set). Thus, it contains also the 9 items that were published in a second edition in Kierkegaard’s lifetime. Since the variants contained in the latter ones are either not documented or only insufficiently documented in the Danish editions, the items represented in this set constitute a significant asset to scholars and will be important to future Kierkegaard editions and translations. Moreover, this set contains items that once belonged to some of Kierkegaard’s relatives and to well-‐known Kierkegaard scholars and collectors. Several of the items are bound by renowned Danish bookbinders, which contributes to the history of Danish book craft. To this section of the donation belong also 9 complete sets of primary Kierkegaard editions that were assembled from the numerous copies Edna and Howard Hong acquired in the course of time. Together with the Rohde-‐Hong Set, these 9 sets of primary Kierkegaard editions constitute a unique resource not only when it comes to analytical bibliography—given its many items in their original state and its otherwise scarce original wrappers, etc.—but also for getting as close as possible to Kierkegaard’s hand in the layout of his books. The wealth of items contained in these sets offers insights into the sociology of reception of Kierkegaard’s works as well. Numerous names of owners, bookplates, variants in binding, names of bookbinders, handwritten annotations, different styles of bindings etc. will prove valuable for future studies. Of special interest is the fact that the list of owners’ names comprises not only scholars and collectors but also names of readers unknown to mainstream Kierkegaard research. Crucial to investigations into this hitherto untold history of reception is the sheer number of copies available in one single library—with all necessary reference works and updated scholarship close at hand.
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The interview printed below was conducted by Kristen-‐Eide Tollefson and Richard Purkarthofer on occasion of the book appraisal at the end of 2010. It focuses on some aspects of the last section of books mentioned above. In appreciation of the visionary work of love which Howard V. Hong manifested in collecting these materials, which led to the finalization of the donation of the collection in December 2015, it seems appropriate to draw the attention of Kierkegaard readers and scholars to the treasure house of the Edna and Howard Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN. Thanks to the generosity of the Hong family and its acting trustee, the HVH Rare Books Collection, comprised of books which will always remain fundamental to the study of Kierkegaard, will continue to make St. Olaf College a unique place for Kierkegaard students worldwide.
Interview:
Kristen Eide-‐Tollefson (KET): You have accomplished a remarkable feat, Richard, in fulfilling Howard Hong's ambition to create these sets out of over 500 copies of Kierkegaard's primary works that he acquired during his lifetime. Tell us how you worked to document and put together the 10 “Hong Sets” (including the Rohde).
Richard Purkarthofer (RP): I started by working through the copies to see what was there. Then later when I got the list, where HVH was keeping track of his original editions of Kierkegaard’s works, it became clear from the lists that he would expand them as the years went on. He would start with first editions, and later he would include second editions if printed in Kierkegaard's lifetime. Along the way some notes of his would also point out the fact that “somewhat later” editions were to be included.
This was probably influenced by Edna and Howard Hong’s work with translation and annotation of Kierkegaard’s works and journals. Back in 1938/39 they lived in Copenhagen and worked on the translation of For Self-‐Examination. So naturally they would buy and use the original edition. Still today any translator would have to have a look at the original editions, even if we did have reliable historical-‐critical editions. Second editions are interesting because of some significant changes they reveal, for instance in Works of Love (1847, 1852), The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air (1849, 1854), and because of various changes in other works as well, eg. in Either/Or (1843, 1849) and Concept of Anxiety (1844, 1855). An obvious choice when it comes to “somewhat later” editions is The Point of View, by and large finished by the end of 1848, but published posthumously by Kierkegaard’s brother P. C. Kierkegaard in 1859. Judge for Yourself!, written 1851/52 and also published by P. C. Kierkegaard in 1876 belongs here, too. HVH would also include a collection of Kierkegaard’s newspaper articles and various materials essential to their understanding, called “Bladartikler”. It was compiled by P. C. Zahle and edited by R. Nielsen in 1857, already two years after Kierkegaard’s death. This outstanding volume contains also a thorough bibliography of Kierkegaard’s published writings, which would have been invaluable for the Hong’s work of translating and annotating Kierkegaard. HVH would also make sure that there are several copies of a supplement to this so-‐called “Bladartikler”, published in 1859. Still, there are some items one might expect in this part of Edna and Howard Hong’s collection, but which were not included. One might mention “Øieblikket”, The Moment no. 10, which was ready for printing when Kierkegaard died, but first published in 1881 in volume VIII of the first comprehensive selection from Kierkegaard’s posthumous papers. This and similar first printings would have been difficult to extract. So there is a pragmatic aspect but also philological soundness to this collection. KET: To the process of collecting and defining it? RP: Yes. KET: So how did you proceed without his list? RP: Basically it turned out that I did it in very much the same way that HVH would have. Completeness of sets was the guiding principle, but some technical criteria played a role, too. For instance, his fondness for editions as issued and appreciation of copies in original boards or wrappers. So I made one set almost entirely of this, and later I found in his notes that he actually planned to have one set in the same way.
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KET: And which set is this? RP: It is set number 2. KET: So this rather shabby looking set from the perspective of a 'rare book' dealer or collector is actually of importance. RP: Yes, because it is as close as you can get to Kierkegaard's own hand in it. Which is significant. Especially when you think that many of the books he published himself. That means he was himself in charge of negotiating with the printer and binder, so no publishing house would interfere with his idea of format, lines on the page, and distribution of blank pages etc. KET: You told me something else about the convention of publishing and bookselling then that bears on the whole question of condition and the practice of who binds the books generally speaking. RP: Yes. Usually the books would come from the printer, if it is a book size publication, in cardboard boards covered with blue paper. And a title on the spine, if the volumes are thick, or otherwise on the front. And for small, thin publications, only in wrappers which could be removed by the bookbinder. And this printed wrapper would contain the same information as the title page, but usually not the year of publication (this is sometimes printed on the back wrapper). Usually there are no end papers in either case. These would be provided by the binder. These original boards, or wrappers would usually be removed by the bookbinder. Individuals would go to their bookbinder and have it bound according to their own taste. Even the Hongs had not every issued book in the original state, a fact that shows how rare they are today. KET: There are signatures of former owners, which is of great interest to us. Did you look at this while you were putting these together? RP: With the exception of the Rohde set, I tried to keep important owner copies out of the sets, because they will be interesting for researchers in and of themselves and maybe should not be spread out. For example, copies owned by relatives, or also Presentation Copies for people who were in direct contact with Kierkegaard, and of course Kierkegaard's own Dedication Copies. These are of special interest, because of having Kierkegaard's autograph in them. They also tell something about Kierkegaard's habits of giving books away. And of his predilections of bookbinding because he would bind them specially and many times use special paper for these Presentation Copies. KET: Sometimes these are called presentation and sometimes dedication copies, is there a difference? RP: There must be a number of books Kierkegaard would have printed on special paper and bound according to his specifications but did not give away. This we gather from The Auctioneer’s Sales Record of The Library of Søren Kierkegaard. On the other hand he would give books away, writing a personal dedication in a letter which accompanied the book. They are all presentation copies but not all bear his dedication. KET: How far did you get before we found HVH's lists? RP: Maybe 4 sets. KET: And it really didn't influence you much at that point because you felt you were on the right track? RP: Yes. And you could see how HVH had struggled with putting the sets together. He would rearrange them over many years, and of course, he also kept buying books, which gave occasion for rearrangements. And maybe he would also try to get books from same owners and binders and this would influence rearrangements of the collection too. KET: This reminds me that HVH was always watching auctions and the collections that were coming up for sale. And sometimes bidding on them. You also have for years watched these auctions and the dispersion of these
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collections. What insights do you have from this, about HVH's collection not only for these sets but other things as well? RP: As HVH said in one of his recorded interviews, he had an affliction for auctions, especially book auctions. He would follow them partly because, as has been aptly said, he loved to own things. It would be like watching the stock market. In some of his copies you will find the original price and a small slip cut out of a later auction catalog and he would cross out the original price, and write the price from the auction on it. So it was like stocks rising. Which of course is not completely true. But in this way he would “follow the market”. On the other hand, and maybe more importantly, he was aware of the significance of books and other materials from Kierkegaard's time not only because of his keen sense for matters historical. These collections would be valuable and indeed indispensable for translation and for the exhaustive commentaries as well. The Hongs would also buy books that Kierkegaard actually owned -‐-‐ however, the main intention was not to create a museum but a working collection. So he would also follow these markets to (continue to) reconstruct Kierkegaard's own library and beyond. KET: Back to the sets. It was quite a project to put them together. RP: Yes. First I had to go through all of them to get an impression. Then I would have to look at the 2 sets he already donated to the Kierkegaard Library, which also helped to establish what we has going after. Of particular value was the Rohde-‐Hong set. (As he tells us in the 1998 interview) he purchased the whole set put together by Rohde. But he would supplement it. Which of course betrays his intentions with these sets and the scope he had in mind. You would find for example, added to the existing Rohde set, a second copy of the Concept of Irony, so he had it in both forms. Namely, the copy distributed on the occasion of the defense of Kierkegaard’s thesis with the additional Thesis pages, and the trade edition which was available with the book dealer, which left out the thesis page, but added a quote from Plato on the title page. HVH was particularly interested in having the Upbuilding Discourses from 1843 and 1844 in the sets of 2, 3, and 4 discourses, which were published and bound separately in these two years. These separate editions were later on collected and provided with a new title page and table of contents and published as Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses in 1845. When they ran out of the first two discourses, the remaining ones were collected into Sixteen Edifying Discourses in 1852, again with a new title page and table of contents. Hong intended to include both the individual issues, the first collection of eighteen, and the later one of sixteen edifying discourses. KET: So how many of these sets actually have the Edifying Discourses in all of these formats? RP: Only the Rohde. KET: And you have added, according to HVH's intentions, the complete individual parts? RP: Yes, some in original wrappers, and one with the individual green wrapper which is rare. KET: Green wrappers, blue wrappers? RP: Even though all of them came from the same printer, they might have a different outfit. In some instances this might be a question of availability of materials. Collectors would appreciate these details. These early Edifying Discourses came all from Bianco Luno, Kierkegaard's favorite and the most accomplished of the printers in Copenhagen at that time. He learned his trade in a number of countries. KET: And who was Reitzel, then, whose name is on the publishing page? RP: From 1847 on, Reitzel would (with exception of one publication) be Kierkegaard's publisher. But before that, Kierkegaard acted as his own publisher and Reitzel would sell the most of his books on commission. KET: Acting as a distributor?
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RP: Yes. He would sell the copies for SK. You can see this on the title pages of the books. When Kierkegaard acted as his own publisher, it would be printed on the title page, “available at” Reitzel or Philipsen—who was also a book dealer and a publisher. And until a year ago, Reitzel was still a book dealing and publishing company. There were twelve publications which Reitzel sold for Kierkegaard and there were six publications which Philipsen sold for Kierkegaard. KET: Do you know what was the commission? RP: Usually either 16 or 25% of the selling price. KET: What other 'themes' for the sets do you recall in organizing them? RP: Completeness was the key – and bindings. Similar styles of bindings, periods, and in cases when I could identify the bookbinder I would try to get them in the same sets. Not so much the condition of the texts, the remarks, or the condition of the bindings. These were secondary considerations. For in stance in set 2 – these are mostly copies as issued. They will have to be rebound very soon in order to preserve both books and original boards or wrappers. In case I did not have the original state, I would take copies of books which also were in need of rebinding. Because then they could all be rebound together without concern for destroying a nice binding. KET: You told me that it is not considered a very big problem that the condition of a book, of a first edition, is not exceptional. RP: Maybe one should differentiate here between the condition of the binding and the block. As close as the book is to the original state, and condition, the more value among collectors. If the binding is not in good shape it does not influence the price too much because you can always rebind it for 100-‐150 dollars. But the paper condition and the block is very important: whether it is cut or uncut and how far it is cut down; whether the block is broken or not; and then of course how foxed the paper is; the stains or notes and what kind of notes. Pencil would not matter so much, and even old ink notes do not detract much, but ball point would be a detraction. KET: Thank you and it helps me to understand why in the interview with Howard Hong, he put so much emphasis on the condition of the paper. Our listing has two condition fields, one for the binding and one for the paper condition. This took longer than you expected? RP: Yes. Going through them so many times, noting owner names, and getting the sense of the collections and also Howard's notes. And of course my own task was also to spot something of relevance to Kierkegaard research, especially histories of owners which will be a topic in future Kierkegaard research. It is conceivable that many of these 200-‐525 copies issued of each title, will be traced down and an attempt be made to reconstruct the history of each of these volumes. Even the ones that perished. KET: This is something that has happened to date primarily in the market, in the auction house where copies are offered for sale? RP: Especially in cases where well-‐known collectors are involved, because this adds additional value to prospective collectors. But the other thing of interest in HVH's collection, “collection” is perhaps not the right word, but “reapings”. Is this the right word? KET: That is a wonderful word. Tell me more. RP: Well, there certainly is a sense of harvest in this work of collection. But “reaping” brings also the reaping hook to mind. There is some violence to it, too. Sure, collectors would cooperate and for instance exchange books or facilitate acquisitions, but there was also fierce competition. However, one of the fiercest of his
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competitors on the market was probably HVH himself. One might say that he created a market and thus had to compete with himself. As you noted, probably values will diminish because there are not so many players. HVH was one of the main players. He would grab everything. Whereas collectors and auction houses would go for nice and stately copies and create interest in stating the names of renowned collectors, the Hongs would also buy copies in bad shape that were not previously owned by educated people, but by simple people. So this offers a unique insight into the sociology of reception of SK. Collectors would not usually buy combined volumes and if they do they might separate and rebind them individually. But of course combined volumes tell something about readers’ tastes and availability. So it is part of this sociology of reception of Kierkegaard. Usually we would know about renowned collectors. The enormous amount of copies in the Hongs’ collections could offer new insights into the apocryphal history of reception; a history which is not included in the canon. We know the history of reception mainly through educated people, but an apocryphal history would reconstruct the social distribution, the untold history of reception. The canonical perspective comes to us via researchers, marketers and literary people which creates a mainstream story about Kierkegaard's work. Now with so many copies here, we would also have hints about readers we did not know about before. KET: This was important to K, you have told me? And the question of reception of Kierkegaard's work. Was this not complicated by the 'sensationalism' of the polemics, the literary feuds? Were the publications in which these polemics appeared, were these popular publications? RP: Yes. K's attack on the church was very public, and stimulated a lot of discussion and even sale of his books. Because of this public debate the writings of The Moment were in need of reprinting very soon. But also The Concept of Anxiety was republished in 1855, the year of K’s death. This is partly due to the fact that it was only published in 250 copies, the original print run being lower than in other cases. But this also goes to show that even as polemics were running high, people were interested in Kierkegaard's theological writings. Even though the polemical writings of The Moment are still today a stumbling block for many Kierkegaard scholars, they triggered considerable interest in Kierkegaard’s writings and some of the very earliest translations into German. KET: Is there anything else that these sets, or the process of construction the “Hong Sets”, can tell us? RP: As has been said, Howard Hong loved to own things and to evaluate them in monetary terms, but it was my impression that it was always subject or secondary to and part of a greater mission. Which was to make Kierkegaard's thoughts and writings accessible to people. And even though he would be very well acquainted with all the details of culture, of history and reception, he would never let himself be distracted by these minor empirical details, they would always be part of a greater mission which is to make K accessible. KET: What does that suggest do you think? RP: There is a lot there. I mean, one side is of course the sheer philological nature of it. He would need some of these copies and the different texts for his own translations. But he also loved to make lists of things he owned, and to evaluate and reevaluate them. I appreciate this. Because we go so fast now to narratives. We love to have stories. He appreciated though, just lists of facts: “blue cloth, blue paper binding, brown leather contemporary, blue paper, half bound brown leather” – and so on, hundreds of such notes. It's a kind of very soothing litany on things close at hand – and since they were never meant to be ends in themselves – on things close at heart. A way of looking at things as they are, and not to be rushed and busy about stories and narratives. Letting things speak for themselves, lists of things. Sure, you can reconstruct their stories, but they won't overwhelm you. Carefully and patiently you might get stories out of this. Sometimes the style of a binding, and a simple name, conceals a whole destiny. Or upon close inspection, would reveal a fate of a human life. KET: You have an example.
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RP: Yes, the copy I examined that belonged to Marie Eeg. It is the second edition of Works of Love from 1852. It is bound in contemporary brown cloth and shows the author’s name, title and gilt decoration on spine, which is broken. Furthermore it shows a decorated, embossed cross on both boards. There are no underlinings or marks in the text. On the free endpaper the Name Marie Eeg shows in ink. Normally, that would hardly suffice to track the owner, but here in the back you have the mark of the “Bogbinder Jens Carl Bech”. He was a bookbinder in Aalborg, Jutland. And the embossed cross on the covers would be for prayer books or bibles. So the fact that this work, Works of Love, is bound in this way -‐ says something as well. This seems to be the first binding of the book, as a present, or perhaps she may have had it bound herself. She was probably the daughter of a schoolteacher in a little village maybe 15 miles away from Aalborg. Very provincial back then. You can follow Marie in the census from 1840 when she was 6 years old and in the census of 1850. But she is not in the 1855 census, suggesting she was married then. And she died in 1857 at 23 years (church records). She would have owned the book sometime between 1852 and 1857, in the last 5 years of her life. KET: Yet it is very worn, the binding. Very moving. RP: I think I will include this in the Rohde-‐Hong set. KET: We'll make a box then for it. So it does not have to be repaired. And can tell its own story in this way. We will need a note from you, as to why it is included. Thank you very much Richard. RP: Thank you, Kristen. Photo taken in the Hong Kierkegaard Library Rare Book Room.
