Kierkegaard's Writings, XIV: Two Ages: "The Age of Revolution" and the "Present Age" A Literary Review PDF
Preview Kierkegaard's Writings, XIV: Two Ages: "The Age of Revolution" and the "Present Age" A Literary Review
TWO AGES KIERKEGAARD'S WRITINGS, XIV TWO AGES THE AGE OF REVOLUTION AND THE PRESENT AGE A LITERARY REVIEW by S0ren Kierkegaard Edited and Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY Copyright © 1978 by Howard V. Hong Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW All Rights Reserved Sixth printing, and first paperback printing, 2009 Paperback ISBN: 978-0-691-14076-6 The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye, 1813–1855. Two Ages. (His Kierkegaard’s writings ; 14) Translation of: En literair Anmeldelse. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd, Thomasine Christine Buntzen, 1773–1856. To Tidsaldre. I. Hong, Howard Vincent, 1912– . II. Hong, Edna Hatlestad, 1913– . III. Title. IV. Series: Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye, 1813–1855. Works. English. 1978 ; 14. PT8131.G9T63413 1997 839.8’1’36 77-71986 ISBN 0-691-07226-4 Rev. British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available Editorial preparation of this work has been assisted by a grant from Lutheran Brotherhood, a fraternal benefit society, with headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Designed by Frank Mahood press.princeton.edu Printed in the United States of America 7 9 10 8 6 CONTENTS HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION vii Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age, A Literary Review 1 PREFACE 5 INTRODUCTION 7 Survey of the Contents of Both Parts 25 II An Esthetic Interpretation of the Novel and Its Details 32 Ill Conclusions from a Consideration of the Two Ages 60 The Age of Revolution 61 The Present Age 68 SUPPLEMENT 113 Key to References 114 Original Title Page 116 Selected Entries from Kicrkcgaard 's Journals and Papers Pertaining to Two Ages: A Literary Review 119 Preface and Conclusion from Thomasine Gyllembourg's Two Ages 153 EDITORIAL APPENDIX 159 Acknowledgments 161 Collation of Two .4ges: A Literary Review in the Danish Editions ofKierkegaard's Collected Works 163 NOTES 165 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 177 INDEX 179 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION S0ren Kierkegaard had long esteemed the writings of Thom asine Christine Gyllembourg-Ehrensvard, nee Buntzen (1773-1856), whose writings were published anonymously by her son, Johan Ludwig Heiberg (1791-1860), poet, philoso pher, dramatist, editor, esthetician, and the dominant literary personage in Denmark at that time. Kierkegaard had read her first novels, 1 The Po/onius Family (Familien Polonius) and A Story of Everyday L(fe (En Hverdags-Historie) in the Kjebenhavns fiyvwde Post, a weekly paper edited by her son. When Mrs. Gyl!embourg's last novel, Two Ages, was published-again, anonymously-on October 30, 1845, with J. L. Heiberg as its editor, Kierkegaard was prompted to write not only a review of that particular book but also a commendation of her writings as a whole, and in addition a cultural critique. Thus the "review" developed into some thing more than a review, more than a booklet, and ended up almost as long as the novel under review! Kierkegaard assumed-as did all Mrs. Gyllembourg's readers-that Denmark's popular anonymous author (until her death known only as "the author of A Story of Everyday Life") was a man. When he sent a gift copy of his review of Two Ages to the author through the book's stated editor, J. L. Heiberg,2 he had only rumored knowledge that he was writ ing to one of the most spirited and intelligent women in Copenhagen. Thomasine Gyllembourg did not begin writing until she was fifty-four years old-no doubt encouraged by the bril liant son of her brief marriage to P. A. Heiberg, essayist, novelist, playwright, and spokesman for the radical republi- 1 Danish Novelle, short story. The Polonius Family is 114 pages, A Story of E••eryday Life is 58 pages. The later writings are considerably longer; Two Ages is 247 pages-too long to be called a short story. 2 See Letters, KW XXV, no. 134; Supplement, p. 143. viii Historical Introduction can minority in Denmark. Because of his political agitation and social-political criticism, he had been banished from Denmark in December 1799 and had taken up residence in Paris. Thomasine chose separation and divorce from the man who was twenty years her senior and poles apart from her own lively, passionate nature. In 1801 she married Karl Gyllembourg-Ehrensvard, who had been banished from Sweden for his political activities and had been a frequent vis itor in the Heiberg home. Their happy marriage ended in his death in 1815, at which time Thomasine was granted a royal pension and moved to the home of her gifted son, who two years before, at the age of twenty-two, had already published his first book. The J. L. Heiberg home, wherever it happened to be in the ensuing years, became a lively center of cultural life in Copenhagen. This extraordinary home was enhanced in 1831 by Heiberg's marriage to Denmark's greatest actress, henceforth known as Luise Heiberg, to whom Kierkegaard dedicated his little book The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress (1847). In the anonymously printed A Story of Everyday Life, which Danish literary historians consider Denmark's first modern novel of significance, the reader encounters Thomasine Gyl lembourg's intense craving for meaningful form in everyday life as well as her strong sympathy for those who, like her, have experienced the turmoils of the heart. She emerges in the book as a champion of the rights of both heart and mind. Kierkegaard had read the novel in serial form in Heiberg's literary weekly and already in 1838 had expressed his appreci ation of the novel, "or, more correctly," had given "an effu sive discourse" (p. 23) on the series in his review of Hans Christian Andersen's Only a Fiddler. 3 In his review of Two Ages, S0ren Kierkegaard states that he wants "a second and last try," trusting that he is "changed in the repetition: a little more clarity in the presentation, a little more lightness in a flowing style, a little more consideration in recognition of the difficulty of the task, a little more inwardness in discernment: consequently changed in the repetition" (p. 23). 3 See Supplement, pp. 123-27. Historical Introduction IX Thomasine Gyllembourg's view of life comes forth most vividly in Two Ages, which, as the title suggests, contrasts the mentality of two different generations, especially as that men tality is reflected in family life. Having lived through the one age, the age that felt the world-wide impact of Rousseau's thought and of the French Revolution, and into the age of ra tionalism, Thomasine Gyllembourg could depict the advan tages and disadvantages of both. Endowed as she was with both a feeling-full heart and a thought-full mind, she found elements of resonance in each age. In this book Kierkegaard found his own Socratic esteem for reflection as deliberation, as a presupposition for the essentially human life. He found, as well, his own propensity to drop no subject until it had been thoroughly discussed. He also found his own multiple use of the word rejlection, at times meaning the reflected image and effect of the age in private, domestic, and social-political life (Danish Reflex), and also reflection as deliberation (Danish Reflexion). In fact, Robert Bretall points out that in Kier kegaard's review of Two Ages " 'reflection' is the principal category ... with the ambivalence typical of all Kierkegaard 's categories .... "4 Versatile categories pose difficulties for translators. For the sake of distinction, in the translation of Kierkegaard's Two Ages, Reflex as reflected image and effect has been translated reflexion. The Danish REiflexion as deliberation has been trans lated as reflection, but this again is a complex term in S0ren Kierkegaard's Two Ages and at times also has the meaning of calculating prudence or procrastinating indecision lacking in the passion of engagement. S0ren Kierkegaard's review of Thomasine Gyllembourg's Two Ages seems to have been prompted by more than sheer admiration for that particular book. Two other factors seem to have entered in. Various drafts of the review suggest that he had been writing the piece in 1845, shortly after the publi cation of Mrs. Gyllembourg's book in October 1845. But the drafting was set aside while he completed the manuscript of 4 A Kierkegaard Anthology, ed. Robert Bretall (Princeton: Princeton Uni versity Press, 1947), p. 260.
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