Without Authority: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Works as Romantic Narratives

Abstract

This article examines Kierkegaard's pseudonymous writings in the context of German Romantic narrative theory and practice and his reception of both. Although usually regarded as opposed to Romanticism, Kierkegaard employs narrative techniques - notably formal diversity and self-reflexivity - that fulfil central tenets of early Romantic theory. He also receives important impulses from the fiction of later German Romantics, such as Arnim, Chamisso, and the later Brentano: besides aspects of content these concern structural devices such as fictitious editors, multiple narrators, and intertextual references. His critique of aestheticism was anticipated by Wackenroder and Friedrich Schlegel. Parallels can also be drawn with Walter Scott's Waverley novels.