Kierkegaard's writings ;

"Without authority," a phrase Kierkegaard repeatedly applied to himself and his writings, is an appropriate common title for this volume of five short works that in various ways deal with the concept and practice of authority. The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air presupposes the teaching authority of the lily and the bird, derived from the authoritative Gospel injunction to learn from them. Two Ethical-Religious Essays deal with the limits of authorization for a witness to the truth and with the contrast between the authority of the genius and that of the apostle. The reaming works - Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, An Upbuilding Discourse, and Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays - presuppose Gospel authority in mediations on forgiveness and the power of love.

"Upbuilding, or edification, is the central theme of Kierkegaard's authorship: "Only the truth that builds up is truth for you" (EO, 2:354). He stressed life development and the necessity of a lifeview for an author in his first work, the little book on Andersen, From the Papers of one Still Living. Either/Or, Part One, sketches numerous lives, victims, and victimizers, who are in desperate need of upbuilding or, more pathetically, rebuilding, or is the proper term rebirth? The letters of Judge William in Either/Or, Part Two, lay out the basic psychological presuppositions for upbuilding a life, presuppositions that Kierkegaard never repudiated, although he did deepen and enlarge them even as he rejected the comfortable complacency of the Judge. The crucial sermon that closes the volume shows the necessity of transcendence to break the domination of social conformity and worldliness that can appear as moral smugness. These early works should have made clear to each and all Kierkegaard's basic intention to become an upbuilding religious author, one critical of much in the common life.Somewhere along the way, probably soon after the publication of Either/Or, Kierkegaard developed a plan to publish a number of upbuilding discourses to "accompany" the pseudonymous works, even those he had not yet written. These discourses, collectively called Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses are the focus of the commentaries in this volume. We have to infer Kierkegaard's reasons for writing them, but the popularity of the worst modes of life presented in Either/Or, Part One, no doubt contributed mightily to his decision" --

The various kinds and conditions of love are a common theme for Kierkegaard, beginning with his early Either/Or, through "The Diary of the Seducer" and Judge William's eulogy on married love, to his last work, on the changelessness of God's love. Works of Love, the midpoint in the series, is also the monumental high point, because of its penetrating, illuminating analysis of the forms and sources of love. Love as feeling and mood is distinguished from works of love, love of the lovable from love of the unlovely, preferential love from love as the royal law, love as mutual egotism from triangular love, and erotic love from self-giving love. This work is marked by Kierkegaard's Socratic awareness of the reader, both as the center of awakened understanding and as the initiator of action. Written to be read aloud, this book conveys a keenness of thought and an insightful, poetic imagination that make such an attentive approach richly rewarding. Works of Love not only serves as an excellent place to begin exploring the writings of Kierkegaard but also rewards many rereadings.

Prefaces; presented as a set of prefaces without a book to follow, this work is a satire on literary life in nineteenth-century Copenhagen, a lampoon of Danish Hegelianism, and a prefiguring of Kierkegaard's final collision with Danish Christendom. At the same time it tightly expresses themes characteristic of the entire authorship, including subjectivity and Christian devotion. Shortly after publishing Prefaces, Kierkegaard began to prepare Writing Samplers as a sequel. This next work considers the themes of Prefaces but in a yet more ironical and satirical vein. Writing Sampler remained among Kierkegaard's unpublished writings during his lifetime and appears here for the first time as Kierkegaard originally envisioned it, in the company of Prefaces.

"In his praise for Part I of Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, the eminent Kierkegaard scholar Eduard Geismar said, "I am of the opinion that nothing of what he has written is to such a degree before the face of God. Anyone who really wants to understand Kierkegaard does well to begin with it." These discourses, composed after Kierkegaard had initially intended to end his public writing career, constitute the first work of his "second authorship."" "Characterized by Kierkegaard as ethical-ironic, Part One, on the theme of "Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing," offers a penetrating discussion of double-mindedness and ethical integrity; the irony lies in the relation between factuality and ideality. Part Two, "What We Learn from the Lilies in the Field and from the Birds of the Air," is humorous for Kierkegaard in that it exposes an inverted qualitative difference between the learner and the teacher. In Part Three, "The Gospel of Sufferings, Christian Discourses," the philosopher explores the theme of joy, as in "The Joy of It That the School of Sufferings Educates for Eternity.""--BOOK JACKET.

Besides a sense of personal loss at the death of David F. Swenson on February 11, 1940, I felt dismay that he had left unfinished his translation of the Unscientific Postscript. I had longed to see it published among the first of Kierkegaard's works in English. In the spring of 1935 it did not seem exorbitant to hope that it might be ready for the printer by the end of that year. For in March I learned from Professor Swenson that he had years before "done about two thirds of a rough translation." In 1937/38 he took a sabbatical leave from his university for the sake of finishing this work. Yet after all it was not finished- partly because Professor Swenson was already incapacitated by the illness which eventually resulted in his death; but also because he aimed at a degree of perfection which hardly can be reached by a translator. At one time he expressed to me his suspicion that perhaps, as in the translation of Kant's philosophy, it might require the cooperation of many scholars during several generations before the translation of Kierkegaard's terminology could be definitely settled. I hailed with joy this new apprehension, which promised a speedy conclusion of the work, and in the words of Luther I urged him to "sin boldly."--Editor's pref., p. [ix].