Nihilism and the Novel

Abstract

If, at one level, Kierkegaard’s aesthetic authorship may be seen as a kind of auto-destructive theatre of the imagination, that does not mean that all further possibilities of interpretation are forthwith exhausted. There are other modes of reading, equally well-grounded in Kierkegaard’s own understanding of literature and aesthetics, which we can use to bring into prominence further aspects or dimensions of that authorship. In particular it is possible to read certain works ethically, and to do so precisely by reading them as novels and, as I hope to show, this correlation between ethical interest and novelistic form is in accordance with Kierkegaard’s own literary theory. My argument will, in part, involve shifting our attention to a different set of texts, but, on the other hand, several of the same texts we have already called on will now appear again in a different light. The point is that the different genres within Kierkegaard’s authorship are not invariably demarcated with absolute rigidity but that the same works can, on occasion, operate simultaneously on a number of different levels, and that the different methods of reading are necessary in order to realise the full complexity of the authorship. I shall therefore seek to show, first, that Kierkegaard’s view of the novel did indeed require the application of ethical criteria; secondly, that this is directly relevant to his own literary productivity; and thirdly, how this relates to a further, religious, reading of the authorship.