Søren Kierkegaard – A Biography - Softcover

Garff, Joakim; Kirmmse, Bruce H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691127883 ISBN 13: 9780691127880

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2007

Synopsis

Soren Kierkegaard A biography of Soren Kierkegaard, it potrays him as a man whose writings came to control him. It explores the events and relationships that formed Kierkegaard including his guilt-ridden relationship with his father, his rivalry with his brother, and his tortured relationship with his fiancee Regine Olsen. Full description

About this title

Review

"Monumental. . . . Garff's informal voice enlists us in the village of gossip of Kierkegaard's time. . . . [H]is tone helps create a sense of excitement, of caring, of importance, of--locally and cosmically--scandal."---John Updike, The New Yorker

"Although some will accuse Garff of revealing salacious details of the philosopher's life--as in the chapters on Kierkegaard's relationship with his fiancee Regine Olsen--this monumental and magisterial biography offers fresh glimpses into the sometimes-tortured life and work of this true philosophical genius."--Publishers Weekly

"Praise for the orignial, Danish edition: "Joakim Garff tells stories with the passion and artistic effects of a novelist. . . . [He] places Kierkegaard in Copenhagen's Golden Age with such a wealth of personalities, topography, and atmosphere that this might be one of the best books ever written about the Golden Age. . . . This publication . . . will be discussed all over the world. It is a great book, really great.""--Politiken

"The royal road to Kierkegaard is still the oblique road--his own writings--but Garff's biography makes an excellent traveling companion."---Richard Polt, Village Voice

"Garff . . . obviously has been marinating in Kierkegaard for years. . . . His beautifully written and translated biography is scholarship at its best, filled with witty observations, felicitous turns of phrase, and sharp analyses."---Heller McAlpin, The Christian Science Monitor

"Garff aims [to challenge] those concerned with Kierkegaard's theological and philosophical views to think about the life that produced the teachings."---Richard Crouter, The Christian Century

"There can be no doubt of [Joakim] Garff's success, and for once the adjective 'magisterial' seems fully appropriate."---Frank Day, Magill's Literary Annual

"Joakim Garff . . . has succeeded, not only in making Kierkegaard and his Copenhagen milieu live vigorously in this truly momentous book, but also in gripping the reader's attention. . . . A huge book about an eccentric philosopher turns out to be an enthralling and exciting read."---Alison Ainley, The Philosophers' Magazine

"[An] excellent biography of Kierkegaard."---Jane O'Grady, Literary Review

"For any reader of Kierkegaard, this book will have a theatrical effect. It is as though one has been listening to a long soliloquy: suddenly the curtain goes up and there is golden-age Denmark. The 'soliloquy' is now embedded in a vibrant and multi-faceted conversation. The book is written with confidence and verve; it has been beautifully translated into English by Bruce H. Kirmmse. If you are capable of being absorbed by the life of one who did little but think and suffer privately, this is an 816-page page-turner."---Jonathan Lear, Times Literary Supplement

Synopsis

'The day will come when not only my writings, but precisely my life - the intriguing secret of all the machinery - will be studied and studied'. Soren Kierkegaard's remarkable combination of genius and peculiarity made this a fair if arrogant prediction. But Kierkegaard's life has been notoriously hard to study, so complex was the web of fact and fiction in his work. Joakim Garff's biography of Kierkegaard is thus a landmark achievement. A seamless blend of history, philosophy, and psychological insight, all conveyed with novelistic verve, this is the most comprehensive and penetrating account yet written of the life and works of the enigmatic Dane who changed the course of intellectual history. Garff portrays Kierkegaard not as the all-controlling impresario behind some of the most important works of modern philosophy and religious thought - books credited with founding existentialism and prefiguring postmodernism - but rather as a man whose writings came to control him. Kierkegaard saw himself as a vessel for his writings, a tool in the hand of God, and eventually as a martyr singled out to call for the end of 'Christendom'.

Garff explores the events and relationships that formed Kierkegaard, including his guilt-ridden relationship with his father, his rivalry with his brother, and his famously tortured relationship with his fiancee Regine Olsen. He recreates the squalor and splendor of Golden Age Copenhagen and the intellectual milieu in which Kierkegaard found himself increasingly embattled and mercilessly caricatured. Acclaimed as a major cultural event on its publication in Denmark in 2000, this book, here presented in an exceptionally crisp and elegant translation, will be the definitive account of Kierkegaard's life for years to come.

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0691127883
• ISBN 13: 9780691127880
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 896