Works of Love by Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) found a new audience in the 20th century as a forerunner of Existentialism through his profound considerations on anxiety and despair. The prolific and short-lived author-philosopher wrote three dozen books before his death at age 42. One of his most explicitly religious essay collections, Works of Love, is out in a new translation.
As translator Bruce H. Kirmmse puts it in his introduction, Kierkegaard’s objective in writing Works of Love was to be a “gadfly” in the Socratic model—to awaken and prod his readers. Kierkegaard’s thesis was based on Jesus’ call to “love your neighbor as yourself” and was addressed to a Christian audience grown deaf to the saying’s radical message. Kierkegaard interprets “neighbor” as everyone we encounter, not just a chosen few, and insists that love consists in selflessly helping other persons to fulfill themselves and stand on their own. He would have no patience for the naming rights philanthropy of nowadays; the desire for praise amounts to “self-love,” not giving.
Kirmmse allows Kierkegaard’s page-long, Faulkner-rivalling sentences to stand untrimmed, pointing to the philosopher’s literary aesthetic. Kierkegaard wrote by reciting his passages and expected his audience to read his lines out loud to achieve full comprehension. Kierkegaard rejected the word “sermon” to describe Works of Love, but comparisons to a well-wrought homily are often inevitable.
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