The Point of View of My Work as an Author

by Søren Kierkegaard

Blurb

The Point of View For my Work as an Author is an autobiographical account of the 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's use of his pseudonyms. It was written in 1848, published in part in 1851, and published in full posthumously in 1859. This work explains his pseudonymous writings and his personal attachment to those writings. Walter Lowrie, a Kierkegaardian translator and scholar called this an autobiography "so unique that it has no parallel in the whole literature of the world."
I will allow someone else to speak, my poet, who, when he comes, will usher me to the place among those who have suffered for an idea and say: "The martyrdom this author suffered can be described quite briefly in this way: He suffered being a genius in a market town. ... Yet also here in the world he found what he sought: "that single individual"; if no one else was that, he himself was and became that more and more.
— Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View in the Essential Kierkegaard, pp. 479–80
However, Kierkegaard did make the following remarks in The Point of View that cast doubt on whether he regarded the pseudonymous writings as highly as he did his Christian writings.

First Published

1859

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