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Overview

Fear and Trembling was written by Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and published in 1843. Kierkegaard examines the angest (anxiety) faced by Abraham when God orders him to sacrifice his son Isaac to test his faith. Kierkegaard may have been using Abraham’s ordeal to examine his own decision to break off his relationship with Regine Olsen, his fiancé. Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling pseudonym, “Johannes de Silentio,” is an allusion to a Grimms’ fairy tale character who is turned to stone for attempting to warn his master and may represent the author’s suspicion that his own words would go unheeded.

Read the overall summary and three Question & Answers about key ideas in from Fear and Trembling. Or, learn more by studying SparkNotes guides to other works by Søren Kierkegaard.

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