Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 4: Journals NB-NB5

697 Pages·2011·74.669 MB·English

by  Søren Kierkegaard

KIERKEGAARD’S JOURNALS
AND NOTEBOOKS
BRUCE H. KIRMMSE AND K. BRIAN SO¨DERQUIST
GENERAL EDITORS

KIERKEGAARD’S JOURNALS
AND NOTEBOOKS
VOLUME 4
Journals NB–NB5
Edited by
Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas,
Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Joel D. S. Rasmussen, Vanessa Rumble,
and K. Brian So¨derquist
Published in cooperation with
the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre
Copenhagen
Princeton University Press
Princeton and Oxford
KIERKEGAARD’S
JOURNALS and NOTEBOOKS
EditorialBoard
NielsJørgenCappelørn,AlastairHannay,DavidKangas,BruceH.Kirmmse,
GeorgePattison,JoelD.S.Rasmussen,VanessaRumble,andK.BrianSo¨derquist
incooperationwiththeSørenKierkegaardResearchCentre,Copenhagen
Volume4,JournalsNB–NB5
Originallypublishedunderthetitles
SørenKierkegaardsSkrifter:20JournalerneNB–NB5and
SørenKierkegaardsSkrifter:K20KommentarertilJournalerneNB–NB5
©2003bytheSørenKierkegaardResearchCentreFoundation,Copenhagen
TheSørenKierkegaardResearchCentreFoundationatCopenhagenUniversityhasbeen
establishedwithsupportfromtheDanishNationalResearchFoundation.
EnglishtranslationCopyright©2011by
theSørenKierkegaardResearchCentreFoundation,Copenhagen,and
theHowardandEdnaHongKierkegaardLibrary,St.OlafCollege,Northfield,Minnesota
Requestsforpermissiontoreproducematerialfromthisworkshouldbesentto
Permissions,PrincetonUniversityPress
PublishedbyPrincetonUniversityPress,41WilliamStreet,
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IntheUnitedKingdom:PrincetonUniversityPress,6OxfordStreet,
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LibraryofCongressControlNumber2010929220
ISBN:978-0-691-14903-5
BritishLibraryCataloging-in-PublicationDataisavailable
ThepublicationofKierkegaard’sJournalsandNotebooksissupportedbygrantsfrom
theDanishMinistryofCulture,theUnitedStatesNationalEndowmentfortheHumanities,
andConnecticutCollege.
Anyviews,findings,conclusions,orrecommendationsexpressedinthispublicationdonot
necessarilyreflectthoseoftheNationalEndowmentfortheHumanities.
Kierkegaard’sJournalsandNotebooksisbasedonSørenKierkegaardsSkrifter,whichispublished
withthesupportofgrantsfromtheDanishNationalResearchFoundationand
theDanishMinistryofCulture.
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CONTENTS
Introduction IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII vii
Journal NB IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 1
Journal NB2 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 129
Journal NB3 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 243
Journal NB4 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 283
Journal NB5 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 367
Notes for Journal NB IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 431
Notes for Journal NB2 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 493
Notes for Journal NB3 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 551
Notes for Journal NB4 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 575
Notes for Journal NB5 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 617
Maps IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 651
Calendar IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 659
Concordance IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 667

vii
Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks
Introduction to the English Language Edition
Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks is based on Søren Kierkegaards
Skrifter (hereafter, SKS) [Søren Kierkegaard’s Writings] (Copen-
hagen:Gad,1997–),whichisaDanishscholarly,annotatededition
of everything written by Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855). When
completed SKS will comprise fifty-five volumes. SKS divides the
entirety of Kierkegaard’s output into four categories: 1) works
published by Kierkegaard during his lifetime (e.g., such well-
knowntitlesasEither/Or,FearandTrembling,andTheSicknessunto
Death);2)worksthatlayready—orsubstantiallyready—forpub-
lication at the time of Kierkegaard’s death, but which he did not
publish in his lifetime (e.g., titles such as The Book on Adler, The
Point of View for My Work as an Author, and Judge for Yourself!); 3)
journals,notebooks,excerpts,andloosepapers,collectivelytitled
Kierkegaard’s ”journals and notebooks”; and 4) letters and bio-
graphicaldocuments.Clearly,Kierkegaardwasnotonlyaprolific
author,hewasalsoaprolificwriter,andhisliteraryactivityfound
expressionnotonlyinhispublishedworksbutalsointhemassof
writings that were not published in his lifetime. It is these writ-
ings, the third category listed above, titled Kierkegaard’s Journals
and Notebooks (hereafter, KJN) that constitute the material of the
present English language edition. For a detailed account of pre-
viousDanishandEnglishlanguageeditionsofKierkegaard’sun-
publishedwritings,seepp.vii–xiiofthe”IntroductiontotheEn-
glishLanguageEdition”involume1ofKJN.
I. Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks
Based as it is on the new Danish edition of SKS, the present En-
glish language edition of Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks em-
ploystheSKSprincipleoforganizationbyarchivalunit:journals,
notebooks,andloosepapers.
ThematerialsconstitutingthepresenteditionofKJNconsistof
thedocumentsmentionedaboveasthethirdcategoryofmaterials
includedinSKSasvolumes17through27.Theelevenvolumesof
viii Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks
KJNcontainthetranslatedtextoftheseelevenSKSvolumes,plus
most of the explanatory notes contained in the eleven SKS com-
mentary volumes that accompany SKS 17–27. Specifically, the
textual materials constituting KJN consist of the following
documents:
a)asetoftenjournalstowhichKierkegaardaffixedlabelsdes-
ignatingthem”AA”through”KK”(as”I”and”J”areidentical
intheclassicalRomanalphabet,thereisnojournaltitled”II”);
b)fifteennotebooks,designated”1”through”15”bytheeditors
ofSKS,sequencedaccordingtothedatesonwhichKierkegaard
first made use of them; Kierkegaard himself assigned titles to
four of these notebooks, and the editors retain these titles in
parentheses;
c) a series of thirty-six quarto-sized, bound journal volumes to
which Kierkegaard affixed labels designating them journals
”NB,””NB2,””NB3,”through”NB36”;and
d) a great variety of materials—a large number of individual
foliosheets,pages,slips,andscrapsofpaper—whichtheeditors
ofKJN,followingtheeditorsofSKS,title”loosepapers.”
There is a good deal of chronological back-and-forth in Kierke-
gaard’sposthumouspapers.Kierkegaardoftenmadeuseofseveral
of the first twenty-four documents—the ten journals designated
”AA” through ”KK” and the notebooks ”1” through ”14”—
simultaneously, and there is thus much temporal overlap among
these journals and notebooks. (Indeed, it was only after they had
beeninuseforsometime,probablyinmid-orlate1842,thatKierke-
gaardassignedthedesignations”AA”through”KK”tothejournal
volumes bearing those labels.) Nonetheless, the above-mentioned
archival units do fall into several broad temporal categories, and
these twenty-four journals and notebooks can be collectively as-
signedtotheperiod1833–1846.Notebook15,however,whichisen-
tirely devoted to Kierkegaard’s relationship to Regine Olsen, his
onetimefiance´e,stemsfrom1849.Thejournalstitled”NB”through
”NB36” were assigned their numbered titles in chronological order
byKierkegaardhimselfandstemfromtheperiod1846–1855,though
here,too,thesejournalscontainadditionsandemendations,someof
whichstemfromlaterperiods,disruptingthegeneralchronological
Introduction to the English Language Edition ix
sequence of the journals. The final group of materials, the ”loose
papers,”spanstheentireperiod1833–1855.
KJN follows the editors of SKS in the choice of a two-column
format,whichbestreflectsKierkegaard’spracticewhenkeepinghis
journals and notebooks. Like many of his contemporaries, Kierke-
gaard’susualcustomwithhisjournalsandnotebookswastocrease
the pages lengthwise (vertically) so that each page had an inner
column for the main text and a somewhat narrower outer column
forsubsequentreflectionsandadditions.Inthisway,furtherreflec-
tionscouldbe—andveryoftenwere—addedlater,sometimesmuch
later,oftenonseveralsubsequentoccasions,e.g.,whenKierkegaard
read or thought of something that reminded him of something he
hadwrittenearlier.
Ashasbeennotedabove,acertaindegreeofchronologicalorga-
nizationispresentinthedocumentsthemselves,butastrictlychro-
nological presentation of all the material is neither possible nor,
perhaps,desirable.Astrictandcomprehensivechronologicalorga-
nizationofthematerialisimpossible,forwhilewecanoftendetect
thesequenceinwhichKierkegaardalteredandemendedanoriginal
passage in a notebook or journal, it is frequently not possible to
ascertain when these alterations and emendations took place—
though in his earlier entries Kierkegaard often dated his marginal
additions. Furthermore, there are also cases in which the very se-
quenceofsuchchangescannotbedeterminedwithcertainty.Finally,
evenifitcouldbeestablished,arigorouslychronologicalsequenc-
ing of all the material would not necessarily be desirable, because
such a serial presentation would render it more difficult to see the
mannerinwhichKierkegaardcouldreturntoapassageonmultiple
subsequentoccasions,addingto,deleting,andalteringwhathehad
originally written. (It is hoped that upon completion of all eleven
volumesofKJNitwillbepossibletoproduceanelectroniceditionof
theentireseries;thiswouldmakeitpossibleforreaderstoorganize
andsearchthroughthematerialsinavarietyofways.)
II. The Format and Organization of the Present Edition
1.Kierkegaard’sJournalsandNotebooks(KJN)andSørenKierke-
gaardsSkrifter(SKS)
As already noted, KJN is a translation of Kierkegaard’s journals,
notebooks, and loose papers, using the text as established by the
editorsofSKS.Thegreatmajorityofthematerialsincludedinthe