Stages on Life's WayStages on Life's Way, the sequel to Either/Or, is an intensely poetic example of Kierkegaard's vision of the three stages, or spheres, of existence: the esthetic, the ethical, and the religious. With characteristic love for mystification, he presents the work as a bundle of documents fallen by chance into the hands of "Hilarius Bookbinder," who prepared them for printing. The book begins with a banquet scene patterned on Plato's Symposium. (George Brandes maintained that "one must recognize with amazement that it holds its own in this comparison.") Next is a discourse by "Judge William" in praise of marriage "in answer to objections." The remainder of the volume, almost two-thirds of the whole, is the diary of a young man, discovered by "Frater Taciturnus," who was deeply in love but felt compelled to break his engagement. The work closes with a letter to the reader from Taciturnus on the three "existence-spheres" represented by the three parts of the book. |
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Page 46
... unhappy love . For that it is love they die of there can be no doubt , and that it takes love three times to take the life out of them is just like a dentist taking three times to get a firm molar pulled out . But if unhappy love is ...
... unhappy love . For that it is love they die of there can be no doubt , and that it takes love three times to take the life out of them is just like a dentist taking three times to get a firm molar pulled out . But if unhappy love is ...
Page 368
... UNHAPPY LOVE , AND WHAT IS THE VARIANT FORM OF IT IN THIS EXPERIMENT ? In unhappy love poetry has from immemorial times possessed a foil for its happy love . If , as someone has said , it was a mother at the sick- bed of her child who ...
... UNHAPPY LOVE , AND WHAT IS THE VARIANT FORM OF IT IN THIS EXPERIMENT ? In unhappy love poetry has from immemorial times possessed a foil for its happy love . If , as someone has said , it was a mother at the sick- bed of her child who ...
Page 369
... love's happiness , there would be , as on the scale of a thermometer , a plus and minus series . Beginning with the ... unhappy love , he is no poet , but is a satirist against his will . So then it must not be in the lover's power to ...
... love's happiness , there would be , as on the scale of a thermometer , a plus and minus series . Beginning with the ... unhappy love , he is no poet , but is a satirist against his will . So then it must not be in the lover's power to ...
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Common terms and phrases
able aesthetic Aladdin Aristophanes banquet beautiful become behold believe blissful bookbinder Christianshavn comic Concept of Dread Copenhagen dare death deceived dialectic Diogenes Laertius dreadful Either/Or erotic essentially eternity ethical everything existence experiment expression eyes fact faith fear Fear and Trembling feel girl give hand happy hence hero hold honor idea ideality imagination immediacy individual infinite instant Kierkegaard laugh learned lovable lover marriage married married couple means melancholy Midnight misunderstanding never one's oneself pain passion perceive perhaps Periander person Philosophical Fragments poet poetic poetry possible Postscript precisely pseudonymous quidam quiet reality reason recollection reflection regard relationship religious repentance resolution seducer sense situation Socrates sorrow sort soul speak spirit Stages STAGES ON LIFE'S suffering suppose surely sympathy talk thee thing thou thought tion tragic true understand unhappy love uttered Walter Lowrie whole wife wish woman wonder word Xanthippe young youth