The Point of View

As a spiritual autobiography, Kierkegaard'sThe Point of View for My Work as an Authorstands with such great works as Augustine'sConfessionsand Newman'sApologia pro vita sua--but with a difference. It is neither a confessional autobiography nor a defense. It is an author's story of a lifetime of writing, his understanding of the common aim and comprehensive coherence of the maze of his greatly varied pseudonymous and signed works. In an earlier work,Concluding Unscientific Postscript,Kierkegaard acknowledged his authorship of the series of pseudonymous works that began withEither/Or. With the imminent publication of the second edition ofEither/Or,the pseudonymous series would come full circle, and Kierkegaard again intended to cease writing. Now was the time for a direct "report to history" on the authorship as a whole. In addition to the resultingPoint of View, which was published posthumously, the present volume also contains the companion piecesArmed NeutralityandOn My Work as an Author, a contemporary substitute for the postponedPoint of View. Supplementary entries taken fromKierkegaard's Journals and Papersdocument the context and the development of the writings on the authorship as a whole. In addition, they disclose Kierkegaard's considerations as he wrestled with decisions about publishing the three works and other works that were the "fruit of the year 1848 ... the year of my richest productivity."

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

ix

On My Work as an Author

1

(2)

The Accounting

3

(10)

APPENDIX My Position as a Religious Author in "Christendom" and My Strategy

13

(8)

The Point of View for My Work as an Author

21

(2)

Introduction

23

(4)

Part One

27

(12)

A. The Equivocalness or Duplexity in the Whole Authorship, Whether the Author Is an Esthetic or a Religious Author

29

(4)

B. The Explanation: That the Author Is and Was a Religious Author

33

(6)

Part Two THE AUTHORSHIP VIEWED AS A WHOLE, AND FROM THE POINT OF VIEW THAT THE AUTHOR IS A RELIGIOUS AUTHOR

39

(264)

CHAPTER I

41

(16)

A. The Esthetic Writing Why the beginning was made with esthetic writing, or what this writing, understood in the totality, signifies

41

(14)

1. "Christendom" is an enormous illusion

41

(4)

2. If one is truly to succeed in leading a person to a specific place, one must first and foremost take care to find him where he is and begin there

45

(2)

3. The illusion that religion and Christianity are something to which one turns only when one becomes older

47

(3)

4. Even though a person refuses to go along to the place to which one is endeavoring to lead him, there is still one thing that can be done for him: compel him to become aware

50

(3)

5. All the esthetic writing seen in the totality of the writing is a deception, but understood in a singular way

53

(2)

B. Concluding Postscript

55

(1)

C. The Religious Writing

55

(1)

Conclusion

55

(2)

CHAPTER II The Dissimilarity of My Personal Existing Corresponding to the Dissimilar Nature of the Writing

57

(14)

A. Personal Existing in Relation to the Esthetic Writing

58

(5)

B. Personal Existing in Relation to the Religious Writing

63

(8)

CHAPTER III Governance's Part in My Authorship

71

(20)

EPILOGUE

91

(4)

CONCLUSION

95

(4)

SUPPLEMENT

99

(2)

"The Single Individual" Two "Notes" Concerning My Work as an Author

101

(23)

Preface

103

(2)

No. 1 For the Dedication to "That Single Individual"

105

(8)

No.2 A Word on the Relation of My Work as an Author to "The Single Individual"

113

(11)

Postscript

124

(1)

Postscript to the "Two Notes"

125

(2)

Armed Neutrality

127

(16)

SUPPLEMENT

143

(160)

Key to References

144

(2)

Original Title Page of On My Work as an Author

146

(2)

Original Title Page of The Point of View for My Work as an Author

148

(3)

Selected Entries from Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers Pertaining to On My Work as an Author and The Point of View for My Work as an Author

151

(145)

First Manuscript Page of Armed Neutrality

296

(3)

Selected Entries from Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers Pertaining to Armed Neutrality

299

(4)

EDITORIAL APPENDIX

303

Acknowledgments

305

(2)

Collation of On My Work as an Author in the Danish Editions of Kierkegaard's Collected Works

307

(2)

Collation of The Point of View for My Work as an Author in the Danish Editions of Kierkegaard's Collected Works

309

(2)

Notes

311

(22)

Bibliographical Note

333

(2)

Index

335

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