A Biography of Kierkegaard

"Even as a small child I was told, as solemnly as possible: that everyone spat at Christ (who, indeed, was the truth), that the multitude (those who passed by) spat at him and said: 'Shame on you.' I have kept this deep in my heart. This thought is my life" (from the Journals).

Youth

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen on May 5, 1813. Both of his parents were of Jutlandish descent. His father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, was raised a shepherd boy. He experienced what is now considered to have been an event seminal for both father and son, considering the influence of the former on the latter. Michael experienced great suffering and loneliness while alone on the heath. One day, while still a child, he cursed God for his hardships. Notwithstanding this, his situation much improved when he turned twelve years of age, at which time he was sent to live with his uncle in Copenhagen. Michael succeeded as a businessman, a hosier. He did so well that he was able to retire when he was only forty years old. He lived quite comfortably until the age of eighty-two, and died in 1838.

Kierkegaard's mother, Anne, was Michael Kierkegaard's second wife and gave birth to all of his seven children. Her entrance into the household had been as a servant girl. While Kierkegaard wrote much in his journals about his father, he rarely wrote of his mother. She died in 1834 when Kierkegaard was twenty-one.

The Great Earthquake

Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard

An important fragment that Kierkegaard wrote when he was twenty-five is on the so-called "Great Earthquake", when he came to an understanding about his father and the entire family. His father had cursed God due to his hardship and poverty as a shepherd child. Even though shortly later he was rescued from this life and became very prosperous, he felt that the blessings upon his family were an irony, and in fact God's revenge. This despair was inherited by his children, five of whom died prematurely, including his wife. Significantly, this entry is preceded by a quote from King Lear, Act 5 Scene 3.

It was then the great earthquake occurred, the terrible upheaval which suddenly pressed on me a new infallible law for the interpretation of all phenomena. It was then I suspected my father's great age was not a divine blessing but rather a curse; that our family's excellent mental abilities existed only for tearing us apart from one another; I felt the stillness of death spreading over me when I saw in my father an unhappy person who would survive us all, a monumental cross on the grave of all his expectations. A guilt must weigh on the entire family, God's punishment must be upon it; it was meant to disappear, expunged by God's mighty hand, deleted like an unsuccessful attempt, and I only occasionally found some little solace in the thought that upon my father had fallen the heavy duty of reassuring us with the consolation of religion, administering the last sacrament, so that a better world might still stand open for us even if we lost everything in this one, even if that punishment the Jews always called down upon their foes were to fall on us; that all memory of us would be wiped out and no trace found (II A 805).

William McDonald comments on the effects of Kierkegaard's parents on his later thought.

The influence of Kierkegaard's father on his work has been frequently noted. Not only did Kierkegaard inherit his father's melancholy, his sense of guilt and anxiety, and his pietistic emphasis on the dour aspects of Christian faith, but he also inherited his talents for philosophical argument and creative imagination. In addition Kierkegaard inherited enough of his father's wealth to allow him to pursue his life as a freelance writer. The themes of sacrificial father/son relationships, of inherited sin, of the burden of history, and of the centrality of the "individual, human existence relationship, the old text, well known, handed down from the fathers" (Postscript) are repeated many times in Kierkegaard's oeuvre. The father's sense of guilt was so great (for having cursed God? for having impregnated Kierkegaard's mother out of wedlock?) that he thought God would punish him by taking the lives of all seven of his children before they reached the age of 34 (the age of Jesus Christ at his crucifixion). This was born out for all but two of the children, Søren and his older brother Peter, both of whom were astonished to survive beyond that age. This may explain the sense of urgency that drove Kierkegaard to write so prolifically in the years leading up to his 34th birthday (see The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Frithiof Brandt also comments on the influence of the father on the son.

Søren Kierkegaard was the youngest of the family of seven. When he was born his father was 56 and his mother 45, and he often called himself a child of old age. The patriarchal, self-willed father dominated the home. He was a highly gifted man, self-taught, but well-read, and much occupied with spiritual matters. His religious denomination was the pietistic Herrnhuter 'fraternity'. He had a sombre view of life and brought up his children to a strict form of Christianity, which particularly emphasized the sufferings of Christ. He suffered from periodic attacks of depression, awareness of sin and scrupulosity. He especially doubted the salvation of his soul. There is no doubt that it was from his father that Søren Kierkegaard inherited the deepest layers of his personality, the periodic depressions that weighed him down, as well as the outstanding powers of thought, both the penetrating dialectic intelligence and the passionate imagination.... It was particularly the suffering Christ that the father presented to the child. His son says that from boyhood upwards he was brought up to the view that the truth must suffer and be derided and scorned. He mentions as well the indignation he had felt from childhood because, long before he had experienced it himself, he had learned that the world was ruled by lies, meanness and injustice. "Even as a small child I was told, as solemnly as possible: that everyone spat at Christ (who, indeed, was the truth), that the multitude (those who passed by) spat at him and said: 'Shame on you.' I have kept this deep in my heart. This thought is my life" (Søren Kierkegaard, p. 7f.).

The strain of melancholia over the belief that the family was cursed, and the pietistic influence on his life was in part responsible from the break in the relationship between father and son. The two, however, came to joyful a reconciliation shortly before the father's death in 1838.

Regine Olsen

Regine Olsen

In 1840 Kierkegaard became engaged to Regine Olsen (1822-1904), who was then eighteen years old. He had met her years earlier, but she was too young to pursue. She was from a well-to-do family in Copenhagen. It did not take long, however, for him to feel that he had made a grave error. He broke off the engagement the following year after returning her engagement ring. There were at least two reasons for this break. First, he felt that he was unsuitable for Regine due to his severe bouts with melancholia—and he was probably right. Secondly, he believed that he would not live much longer, since his health had always been poor—he had been rejected by the military as unfit—and he felt that a curse lay on his family due to his father having cursed God. This was reinforced by the deaths of his mother and siblings (except for his eldest brother) in rapid succession. Since a broken engagement might tarnish the reputation of a young woman, Kierkegaard tried to make Regine believe that he was a scoundrel, so that all blame would rest upon him alone. This plan failed due to her ability to see through his charade.

After the dissolution of their relationship, Kierkegaard began his writing career. Moreover, late in that year he traveled to Berlin for the first of four trips. These journeys, and a pilgrimage made to his father's birthplace, were his sole venturings outside of his beloved Copenhagen. On April 16, 1843, when Kierkegaard was leaving Vor Frue Church, he saw Regine, who was also leaving. She nodded to him. This was a momentous event for Kierkegaard. He understood this to mean that she had forgiven him, and perhaps had understood why he had left her. Kierkegaard made a journal entry of this event.

At Vespers on Easter Sunday in Frue Kirke (during Mynster's sermon), she nodded to me. I do not know if it was pleadingly or forgivingly, but in any case very affectionately. I had sat down in a place apart, but she discovered it. Would to God that she had not done so. Now a year and a half of suffering and all the enormous pains I took are wasted; she does not believe that I was a deceiver, she has faith in me. What ordeals now lie ahead of her. The next will be that I am a hypocrite. The higher we go, the more dreadful it is. That a man of my inwardness, of my religiousness, could act in such a way. And yet I can no longer live solely for her, cannot expose myself to the contempt of men in order to lose my honor—that I have done. Shall I in sheer madness go ahead and become a villain just to get her to believe it—ah, what help is that. She will still believe that I was not that before (Journals, IV A 97).

But not long after, Kierkegaard learned that she had become engaged to Johan Frederik Schlegel (1817-1896), who had been her instructor. In 1854, a year before Kierkegaard died, they moved to the Danish West Indies where Schlegel became governor.

His Authorship

Kierkegaard considered his authorship to have begun in 1843, though he had already published several articles and his dissertation. From 1843 through 1846 he published works under pseudonyms. These works were grounded in a philosophical schema that formed a unity, even though they were diverse in nature. Even while Kierkegaard published these works, he published overtly religious works under his own name. The two strains of publications formed a well-conceived whole. For information on the individual works of Kierkegaard, see the Commentary. For more on Kierkegaard's writing see his Authorial Method, containing a longer essay comparing his writing method to that of Plato.

The Corsair Affair

Meïr Aaron Goldschmidt

On December 22, 1845 P. L. Møller published a harsh critique of Stages On Life's Way. Kierkegaard retaliated by publishing an article in The Fatherland which mentioned that Møller secretly published in The Corsair. This was a weekly satirical paper, which lampooned people of repute, and was itself considered disreputable, though it was read surreptitiously by many. Its editor was Meïr Aaron Goldschmidt (1819-1887), who was Kierkegaard's junior by several years and an admirer of his keen dialectical wit. Kierkegaard attempted to discredit Møller and to distance Goldschmidt from The Corsair, because he felt that Goldschmidt was capable of greater things. Kierkegaard's foray into lively critique launched a sally of abuse against him, with The Corsair lampooning his appearance and voice. This became perhaps the greatest literary debacle in nineteenth-century Denmark. For more on this see "The Activity of a Traveling Esthetician".

The Attack Upon Christendom

Peter Kierkegaard

The church in Denmark was (and is) Lutheran. It was a State Church in which all Danes were born Lutheran and thus de facto "Christians". Citizenship and enrollment in the Church were the same thing. Kierkegaard alleged that this reduced to nothing radical conversion to Christ. The Church sought to transform the sacred economy of God into a profane state religion. Kierkegaard felt that "Official Christianity", or Christendom, had departed so far from the Christianity of the New Testament, that it needed to be torn down and rebuilt—not reformed. Kierkegaard did not, however, attack the Christianity of the New Testament, but "Official Christianity" or "Christendom". The attack consisted of a series of articles published during the final year of his life. His attack was unusual, since he attacked the Church from within, as a believer. He died in the midst of this heated battle. For more on the origin of this controversy, as well as samples of Kierkegaard's broadsides, see Articles From The Fatherland.

Death and Burial

Kierkegaard's Tomb

On October 2, 1855 Kierkegaard fell unconscious in the street, suffering paralysis of the legs. He was taken to Frederick's Hospital. It is not entirely clear what illness he had, but it may have been some ailment of the spine. During the forty days that he lingered in the hospital room, he had banned his brother Peter from entering. His friend Pastor Boesen visited him daily. Boesen tried to offer Holy Communion to Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard refused it. When asked if he wanted it, he said, "Yes, but not from a parson". He was willing to die without Communion rather than contradict himself, for he had said that the Lutheran Church had to be abandoned as long as God was being mocked in the churches. "The parsons are royal functionaries, and royal functionaries are not related to Christianity". This information comes from Pastor Boesen's own notes which he kept of Kierkegaard's final days (see W. Lowrie's A Short Life of Kierkegaard, p. 253ff.).

For the description of Kierkegaard's funeral, I resort to Lowrie again.

The question of his burial was a ticklish one, and it was very ineptly resolved by the decision to hold the funeral service in the Frue Kirke, the most important church in Copenhagen...and on November 18, which was a Sunday, when the greatest crowd would be free to come. Peter was to preach the sermon. The church was crowded long before the hour, and a multitude of shabby-looking people had pressed forward near the coffin. There were no priests in the church except Peter Kierkegaard and Dean Tryde, who was to conduct the service at the grave. It looked as though there might be a popular protest against the high-handed way in which the Established Church had taken possession of the body of the man who had so publicly defied it. But at the last moment a large body of students resolutely forced their way to the front and stood guard around the coffin. Peter's sermon was very tactfully calculated to allay the animosity of the crowd, and all went quietly.

At the cemetery things did not go so smoothly. Henrik Lund claimed the right to speak, not merely as a nephew, but as one who was closely related to the deceased by sympathy with his thought. He hotly contested the right of the church to appropriate his uncle.... The Dean reminded him that the law allowed only ordained ministers to speak at a funeral. Whereupon Professor Rasmus Nielsen, who had intended to speak, shrugged his shoulders and went away. It was cold and the crowd gradually dispersed.

S. K. was buried in the family lot, but nobody knows precisely where. Peter did nothing to mark the spot... (p. 255f.).

Chronology

1813

1821

1823

1828

1830

1831

1834

1835

1837

1838

1840

Nytorv

1841

Frue Kirke

1842

1843

1844

1845

1846

1847

1848

1849

1850

1851

1852-54

1854

1855

J. P. Mynster H. L. Martensen