Kierkegaard: A Biography

Written by one of the world’s preeminent authorities on Kierkegaard, this biography is the first to reveal the delicate imbrication of Kierkegaard’s life and thought. To grasp the importance and influence of Kierkegaard’s thought far beyond his native Denmark, it is necessary to trace the many factors that led this gifted but (according to his headmaster) ‘exceedingly childish youth’ to grapple with traditional philosophical problems and religious themes in a way that later generations would recognize as amounting to a philosophical revolution. This book offers a powerful narrative account which will be of particular interest to philosophers, literary theorists, intellectual historians, and scholars of religious studies as well as any non-specialist looking for an authoritative guide to the life and work of one of the most original and fascinating figures in Western philosophy.

• Hannay the leading authority on Kierkegaard; has done many translations for Penguin series • Kierkegaard a philosopher (like Nietzsche) who interests people outside philosophy in hist. of ideas, lit. theory, and religious studies • Hannay is co-editor of the successful Cambridge Companion to Kiekegaard

Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. From street to salon: first blood; 2. The matter with Søren; 3. A Faustian phase; 4. The wild geese fly; 5. The dead and the living: debut; 6. Serious about irony: the dissertation; 7. The breach and Berlin: either/or; 8. Faith and tragic heroism; 9. More to being; 10. Notabene’s meditation; 11. Completing the stages; 12. Concluding business; 13. Reviewing the age; 14. Refashioning the exterior; 15. Works of love; 16. Defining the deed; 17. Mischievous martyr; 18. ‘Poor Kierkegaard; Bibliography.

‘Hannay writes as a seasoned philosopher and gifted translator, offering ample and even-handed expositions of Kierkegaard’s published works and their immediate polemical contexts … this prudent, tactful and canny new life is exactly what Kierkegaard needed.’ – Times Literary Supplement

\'… rewarding study … Here there is no doubt that his book marks a watershed in English-language Kierkegaard literature …\'. – Journal of Ecclesiastical History