Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard — Context and Discussion

A Voice of Repetition and Inwardness

The excerpts from Fear and Trembling display a distinctive rhetorical pattern: Kierkegaard builds paragraphs through parallel clauses that escalate rather than resolve. 'It is human to complain, it is human to weep with the weeping; but it is greater to believe'—such sentences do not argue so much as insist, creating a rhythm that mimics the labor of faith. The prose refuses to move quickly; it dwells, repeats, and reframes. This is not exposition but a kind of verbal enactment of inward struggle. Hollander's translation preserves the Latinate gravity ('steadfastly,' 'lamentation') that gives Kierkegaard's Danish a biblical weight. Readers should note how often the text returns to the same point from a slightly different angle, as if trying to wear down resistance through iteration.

Abraham as a Test Case for Faith

The treatment of Abraham in the Fear and Trembling excerpt is striking for what it does not do: it never narrates the Binding of Isaac. Instead, Kierkegaard dwells on the long wait for Isaac's birth, turning Abraham into a figure of 'steadfast' hope against all evidence. 'Abraham grew old, and Sarah became a laughing-stock to the people; and yet was he God's chosen.' The emphasis falls not on the dramatic moment but on the decades of ordinary, painful waiting. Kierkegaard contrasts Abraham with those who 'sorrow' or 'surrender hope,' insisting that faith means holding onto worldly hopes even after surrendering them. This paradoxical formulation—'greater still to abide steadfastly by one's worldly hopes after having surrendered them'—is central to the work's method: it defines faith not as belief in the miraculous but as a sustained orientation of the will.

The Editor's Framing and Its Limits

Hollander's introduction, written in 1923, presents Kierkegaard as a corrective to his own era's 'material considerations' and 'national ideals.' He cites Ibsen's Brand as indirectly indebted to Kierkegaard, and describes the Dane's life as 'notably poor in incidents' but rich in inward experience. This framing is itself a historical document: it reflects early twentieth-century anxieties about collectivism and secularism. Readers should be aware that the introduction's claims—that Kierkegaard is 'virtually unknown' to English readers, that his message is a 'bitter but wholesome antidote'—are part of the book's rhetorical strategy, not neutral description. The selections that follow may not fully bear out this framing; the excerpts focus on faith and doubt rather than social critique.

Reading the Selections as a Sequence

The collection includes five works: 'Diapsalmata,' 'In Vino Veritas (The Banquet),' Fear and Trembling, 'Preparation for a Christian Life,' and 'The Present Moment.' Based on the excerpts, the sequence moves from aesthetic fragments to ethical-religious reflection. 'Diapsalmata' likely offers aphoristic, ironic pieces; 'In Vino Veritas' is a symposium-style dialogue; Fear and Trembling presents the pseudonymous Johannes de Silentio's meditation on Abraham; the later works shift toward explicitly Christian themes. Readers may find it useful to treat the collection as a staged progression, with each section complicating the previous one. The editor's introduction warns that Kierkegaard's works form a 'literature within a literature,' suggesting that the selections are meant to be read as interconnected, not as standalone essays.

This edition rewards readers who attend to the texture of the prose—its repetitions, its paradoxes, its refusal to settle into easy conclusions. The excerpts from Fear and Trembling in particular demonstrate how Kierkegaard uses syntax to perform the mental labor of faith. Hollander's translation, though dated, captures the gravity of the original. Approach the collection not as a systematic philosophy but as a series of experiments in making the reader feel the weight of inwardness.