Project Muse. - Kierkegaards Writings, V, Volume 5: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses

EIGHTEEN
UPBUILDING DISCOURSES

KIERKEGAARDS WRITINGS, V

by Sren Kierkegaard

Edited and Translated
with Introduction and Notes by

Howard V. Hong and
Edna H. Hong

Copyright 1990 by Howard V. Hong

Published by Princeton University Press
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Kierkegaard, Sren, 1813-1855.
[Atten opbyggelige taler. English]
Eighteen upbuilding discourses / by Sren Kierkegaard; edited and translated with
introduction and notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong.
p. cm.(Kierkegaards writings ; 5)
Translation of: Atten opbyggelige taler.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Spiritual life. I. Hong, Howard Vincent, 1912- . II. Hong, Edna Hatlestad,
1913- . III. Title. IV. Title: 18 upbuilding discourses. V. Series: Kierkegaard, Sren,
1813-1855. Works. English. 1978 ; 5.
BV4505.K3713 1990
248.4dc20 90-34571

ISBN 0-691-07380-5
ISBN 0-691-02087-6 (pbk.)

Preparation of this volume has been made possible in part by a grant from
the Division of Research Programs of the National Endowment
for the Humanities, an independent federal agency

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The Lord Gave, and the Lord Took Away;
Blessed Be the Name of the Lord

One Who Prays Aright Struggles in Prayer
and Is Victoriousin That God Is Victorious

A few years after the publication of his six small volumes of upbuilding

If I do nothing at all directly to assure a full understanding of my whole literary production... then what? Then there will be no judgment at all on my authorship in its totality, for no one has sufficient faith or time or competence to look for a comprehensive plan [Total-Anlg] in the entire production. Consequently the verdict will be that I have changed somewhat over the years.

So it will be. This distresses me. I am deeply convinced that there is another integral coherence, that there is a comprehensiveness in the whole production (especially through the assistance of Governance), and that there certainly is something else to be said about it than this meager comment that in a way the author has changed.

Part of the evidence that there is a comprehensive plan or structure in the whole variegated authorship and that the author was not one who changed essentially as he became older is the publication pattern of the six volumes of discourses.

At the heart of the coherent, comprehensive plan, despite many differences among the published works and within the types of writings, is a common intention: to make aware.

The category for my undertaking is: to make persons aware of the essentially Christian, but this accounts for the repeated statement: I am not that, for otherwise there is confusion. My task is to get persons deceivedwithin the meaning of truthinto religious commitment, which they have cast off, but I do not have authority; instead of authority I use the very opposite, I say: the whole undertaking is for my own discipline and education. This again is a genuinely Socratic approach. Just as he was the ignorant one, so here; instead of being the teacher, I am the one who is being educated.

Although there are a comprehensive plan and a common aim in the published writings, there is also a great variety in theme, form, and tone. Indeed, the preface to The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air, after particular reference to the pair

The distinction between two series of published worksthe pseudonymous works and the upbuilding discoursesis not incompatible with the stress upon a comprehensive plan and a common aim that embrace the variety of kinds, levels of development, and modes of approach. An analogous variety is evident also within the range of each of the two series. The essential commonality and the particular differences between the upbuilding discourses and the pseudonymous works, and also between the early and late works in each series, are epitomized by certain characteristics and emphases found in the discourses.

The most obvious difference is that whereas the pseudonymous works from Either/Or through Concluding Unscientific Postscript are indirect communication, the signed discourses from first to last are direct. In The Accounting, in On My Work as an Author, he describes the relation of the two approaches:

But just as that which has been communicated (the idea of the religious) has been cast entirely into reflection and taken back again out of reflection, so also the communication has been decisively marked by reflection, or the form of communication used is that of reflection. Direct communication is: to communicate the truth directly; communication in reflection is: to deceive into the truth. But since the movement is to arrive at the simple, the communication in turn must sooner or later end in direct communication. It began maieutically with esthetic works,

The maieutic lies in the relation between the esthetic productivity as the beginning and the religious as the [goal]. It begins with the esthetic, in which possibly the majority have their lives, and then the religious is introduced so quickly that those who, moved by the esthetic, decide to follow along, are suddenly standing right in the middle of the decisive qualifications of the essentially Christian, are prompted at least to become aware.

begins as an esthetic and a religious author, the religious productivity certainly cannot be explained by the incidental fact that the author has become older, inasmuch as one certainly cannot concurrently be older than oneself.

Within the series of signed direct discourses, there is a distinction between the initial six volumes of the first period (terminated by the publication of