Christian Cyclopedia

(1813–55). B. Copenhagen, Den.; religious philos. and author; marked by deep-seated melancholy; broken engagement affected his writings; tried to adhere to Luth. Confessions; studied theol., but never took office; attacked Est. Ch. for worldliness; held that a Christian is an isolated individual alone with God, in contact with the world only through suffering; made important contributions through self-analyses. Works include Either/Or; Philosophical Fragments; Concluding Unscientific Postscript; Edifying Discourses; Fear and Trembling. See also Existentialism.

E. Geismar, Sören Kierkegaard: Seine Lebensentwicklung und seine Wirksamkeit als Schriftsteller (Göttingen, 1929); D. F. Swenson, Something About Kierkegaard, 2d ed. (Minneapolis, 1945); W. Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard (Princeton, New Jersey, 1942); J. E. Hohlenberg, Sören Kierkegaard, tr. T. H. Croxall (London, 1954); L. Shestov, Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy, tr. E. Hewitt (Athens, Ohio, 1969).