Poets, Cynics and Thieves: Vicious Love and Divine Protection in Kierkegaard's Works of Love and Repetition

Abstract

In Kierkegaard's Repetition, “the girl” on whom a young man focuses his esteem becomes an encumbrance from which a cynic must rescue him. Using Works of Love as the time through which we judge these men allows us to consider false love's perfidious perception of the (here female) other. Kierkegaard's sobering rendition of the love commandment in Works of Love, wherein the beloved is more than the beholder's vision of her, exposes that there is indeed a “girl” in the story and two men who would idolize, trick or banish her. In Works of Love, Kierkegaard distinguishes true love from the poetic perspective, which distorts the other to fit the lover's ideal; from the vampiric gaze, which devours her; and from the sage's inspection, which deems her disposable. Love unguarded by God's command endangers the beheld as well as the overlooked, and Kierkegaard skillfully depicts each of these three distortions in Repetition.