The seducer's diary / by Søren Kierkegaard ; edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong ; with a new foreword by John Updike.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kierkegaard, Søren, 1813-1855.

Contributor:

Hong, Howard V. (Howard Vincent), 1912-2010.

Hong, Edna H. (Edna Hatlestad), 1913-2007.

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Standardized Title:

Forførerens dagbog. English

Language:

Danish

English

Genre:

Fiction.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xv, 214 pages ; 19 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [1997]

Summary:

"In the vast literature of love, "The Seducer's Diary" is an intricate curiosity--a feverishly intellectual attempt to reconstruct an erotic failure as a pedagogic success, a wound masked as a boast," observes John Updike in his foreword to Sren Kierkegaard's narrative. This work, a chapter from Kierkegaard's first major volume, "Either/Or," springs from his relationship with his fiance, Regine Olsen. Kierkegaard fell in love with the young woman, ten years his junior, proposed to her, but then broke off their engagement a year later. This event affected Kierkegaard profoundly. Olsen became a muse for him, and a flood of volumes resulted. His attempt to set right, in writing, what he feels was a mistake in his relationship with Olsen taught him the secret of "indirect communication." "The Seducer's Diary," then, becomes Kierkegaard's attempt to portray himself as a scoundrel and thus make their break easier for her. Matters of marriage, the ethical versus the aesthetic, dread, and, increasingly, the severities of Christianity are pondered by Kierkegaard in this intense work.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [201]-214).

ISBN:

0691017379

OCLC:

36671993