payment page
Either/Or (1843)
Kierkegaard wrote Either/Or soon after receiving his doctorate and breaking his engagement with Regine Olsen. The book has two parts: the first deals with the aesthetic, a word that Kierkegaard uses to denote personal, sensory experiences. The second part of Either/Or deals with ethics. In this part Kierkegaard discusses the merits of a social and morally proper life.
Either/Or is discussed in a one-section Summary & Analysis within the SparkNotes guide Selected Works of Søren Kierkegaard.
Fear and Trembling (1843)
In Fear and Trembling, 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.
