# Prefaces

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1844 book by Søren Kierkegaard

For other uses, see [Prefaces (disambiguation)](/source/Prefaces_(disambiguation)).

Prefaces Prefaces, Danish title page Author Søren Kierkegaard Original title Forord Translator Todd W. Nichol Language Danish Series First authorship (Pseudonymous) Genre Philosophy Publisher Princeton University Press 1977 Publication date June 17, 1844 Publication place Denmark Published in English 1997 – first translation Media type Paperback Pages ~68 ISBN 978-0-691-14073-5 Preceded by Philosophical Fragments Followed by The Concept of Anxiety

***Prefaces*** ([Danish](/source/Danish_language): *Forord*) is a book by [Søren Kierkegaard](/source/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard) published under the pseudonym Nicolaus Notabene. The meaning of the [pseudonym](/source/Pseudonym) used for *Prefaces*, Nicholaus Notabene, was best summed up in his work *[Writing Sampler](/source/Writing_Sampler)*, where Kierkegaard said twice for emphasis, “Please read the following [preface](/source/Preface), because it contains things of the utmost importance.”[1] He was trying to tell his critics to read the preface to his books because they have the key to understanding them. [Nota bene](/source/Nota_bene) is Latin for "note well".

## Context

*Prefaces* was published June 17, 1844, the same date as *[The Concept of Anxiety](/source/The_Concept_of_Anxiety)* (also by a pseudonym: Vigilius Haufniensis). This was the second time Kierkegaard published his works on the same date, (the first being Oct 16, 1843, with the publication of *[Repetition](/source/Repetition_(Kierkegaard))* alongside *[Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1843](/source/Three_Upbuilding_Discourses%2C_1843)* and *[Fear and Trembling](/source/Fear_and_Trembling)*). Kierkegaard published 14 separate works between the publication of *[Either/Or](/source/Either%2FOr_(Kierkegaard_book))* on February 20, 1843, and *[Four Upbuilding Discourses](/source/Four_Upbuilding_Discourses%2C_1844)* which he published on August 31, 1844.

Kierkegaard [contrasted](/source/Contrast_(literary)) one [fictional](/source/Fiction) author with another frequently. This book and its companion piece, *The Concept of Anxiety*, contrasts Notabene, who is mediated by his wife as well as his reviewer, with Haufniensis, who is against his knowledge of sin being mediated by Adam.

If mediation were really all that it is made out to be, then there is probably only one power that knows how to use it with substance and emphasis; that is the power that governs all things. And there is only one language in which it belongs, the language that is used in that council of divinity to which philosophers send delegates no more than landholders do, and from which philosophers receive regular couriers no more than small landholders do. *Prefaces* p. 35

Nicolaus Notabene is a married man who wants to be a writer. His new wife becomes suspicious and forces him to vow to write only prefaces.[2] It is a series of prefaces for unwritten books, books unwritten because the fictitious Notabene's wife has sworn to divorce him if he ever becomes a writer.[3] But for Notabene writing a preface is just a [prelude](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prelude) to an act, it's “like sharpening a scythe or like tuning a guitar”.[4] He tried flattering his wife by telling her she is the “[muse](/source/Muse) who inspires him,” but she says, “Either a properly married man or …”[5] He “promises not to insist on being an [author](/source/Author).” Since he wants to live in the “[literary](/source/Literature#Other_prose_literature) world” he makes sure he lives up to the “[custom](/source/Custom_(law))” of the “[sacred vow](/source/Marriage_vows)”.[nb 1]

“To be an author when one is a married man,” she says, “is downright unfaithfulness, directly contrary to what the pastor said, since the validity of marriage is in this, that a man is to hold fast to his wife and to no other.” Prefaces p. 10

He writes prefaces about “the reading public's” relationship to an author. The author has to “live in public view” once she publishes a book. Notabene then attacks reviewers of books in general, calling them “the highly trusted minions of the most esteemed public, its [cupbearers](/source/Cupbearers) and privy counselors" and the reviewers of his books, *Either/Or* and *Repetition*, [Johan Ludvig Heiberg](/source/Johan_Ludvig_Heiberg_(poet)) and [Hans Lassen Martensen](/source/Hans_Lassen_Martensen) in particular.[6] Kierkegaard was complaining because his books weren't being read, they were being mediated. He says, “a rumor carries away the reading public as the muse’s impulse the poet, since like always effects like.”[7] And the rumor was that all theologians should be philosophers. Kierkegaard put it this way.

[Philosophy](/source/Philosophy) makes every [theologian](/source/History_of_Christian_theology) into a philosopher and does it so that he can satisfy the demand of the times, which must then be philosophical, which in turn [presupposes](/source/Presuppose) that the times, that is, the totality of [individuals](/source/Individual), are philosophical. What a lofty hope for every theological graduate! *Prefaces* p. 51

Notabene makes fun of Hieberg because Hieberg seems to want to explain everything, just like [Hegel](/source/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel#Reading_Hegel). Both want to be mediators of understanding. But Notabene says,

My frame, my health, my entire constitution do not lend themselves to [mediation](/source/Mediation). It may well be that this is a flaw, but when I myself confess it, surely one might humor me. When the word “mediation” is merely mentioned everything becomes so magnificent and grandiose that I do not feel well but am oppressed and chafed. Have compassion on me in only this one respect; exempt me from mediation and, what is a necessary consequence, from becoming the innocent occasion that would cause one or another philosophical prattler to repeat, like a child at the chancel step, something I indeed know well enough: the history of [modern philosophy’s](/source/Continental_philosophy#History) beginning with [Descartes](/source/Descartes), and the philosophical [fairy tale](/source/Fairy_tale) about how [being and nothing](/source/Being_and_Nothingness)[8] combine their deficiencies so that [becoming](/source/Becoming_(philosophy)) emerges from it, along with whatever other amazing things happened later in the continuation of the tale, which is very animated and moving although it is not a tale but a purely [logical](/source/Logic) movement. *Prefaces* p. 45

Vigilius Haufniensis says the same thing in *The Concept of Anxiety*,

How [sin](/source/Sin) came into the world each man [understands](/source/Understanding) solely by himself. If he would learn it from another, he would misunderstand it. The only science that can help a little is [psychology](/source/Psychology), yet it admits that it explains nothing, and also that it cannot and will not explain more. If any science could explain it everything would be confused. p. 51

## Criticism

[Georg Brandes](/source/Georg_Brandes) discussed both Heiberg and Kierkegaard in his 1886 book, *Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century. Literary Portraits*

Though he started in his general aesthetic views on the career pointed out by Heiberg, he nevertheless struck ere long into his own independent course. Heiberg was only a [moralist](/source/Moral_philosopher) in the name of true culture and of good taste; Paludan-Muller became one in the name of stern religious discipline. In religious questions, Heiberg had espoused the cause of [Hegelian](/source/Young_Hegelians) speculative [Christianity](/source/Christianity); [Paludan-Muller](/source/Frederik_Paludan-M%C3%BCller) became an orthodox theologian. Thus his path for not an inconsiderable distance ran parallel with that of Søren Kierkegaard. Not that he was in any way influenced by this solitary thinker. He cherished but little sympathy for him, and was repelled by his broad, unclassical form, for whose merits he had no comprehension, and whose inner harmony with the mind of the author he did not perceive. It was the general spirit of the times which produced the intellectual harmony of these two solitary chastisers of their contemporaries. p. 321

Kierkegaard speaks of the "cultured" in this way, "For the [cultured](/source/Cultured) it is truly too little to have to deal with an individual human being, even though that human being is himself. He does not want to be disturbed when he is to be built up, does not want to be reminded of all the trifles, of individuals, of himself, because to forget all this is precisely the upbuilding."[9]

Christianity can hardly be said to have been a big success when it originally entered the world, inasmuch as it began with crucifixion, flogging, and the like. But God knows whether it actually wants to be a big success in the world. I rather think that it is ashamed of itself, like an old man who sees himself rigged out in the latest fashion. Or, more correctly, I think it focuses its wrath against people when it sees this distorted figure that is supposed to be Christianity, a perfume-saturated and systematically accommodated and soiree-participating scholarliness, whose whole secret is half measures and then truth to a certain degree-when it sees a radical cure (and only as such is it what it is) transmogrified nowadays into a vaccination, and a person’s relation to it equivalent to having a certificate of vaccination. No, the [Christian paradox](/source/Jesus_Christ) is not some sort of this and that, something strange and yet not so strange; its truth is not like Salomon Goldfalb’s [opinion](/source/Opinion): much fore and aft, yes *und* no also. Nor is faith something everyone has, and something that every cultured person might go beyond. If it can be grasped and held fast by the simplest of people, it is only the more difficult for the cultured to attain. What a wondrous, inspiring, Christian humanity: the highest is common for all human beings, and the most fortunately gifted are only the ones subjected to the most rigorous discipline. Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Postscript, 1846, p. 293-294 Hong

## Notes

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** *Prefaces* p. 12, 14 Just as Abraham promised to sacrifice Isaac and the Young Man promised to marry the girl. (See Fear and Trembling and Repetition) Kierkegaard wanted to live an ethical life but he also wanted to do what God wanted him to do. He wrote the following: “The ethical individual knows himself, but this knowing is not simply contemplation, for then the individual comes to be defined according to his [necessity](/source/Metaphysical_necessity). It is a collecting of oneself; which itself is an action, and this is why I have aforethought used the expression “to choose oneself” instead of “to know oneself.” *Either/Or Part II*, Hong p. 258 Also *Kierkegaard's Journals* Gilleleie, August 1, 1835. *Either/Or Vol II* pp. 361–362

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** *Prefaces/Writing Sampler*, by Søren Kierkegaard, Edited and Translated by Todd W. Nichol, Princeton University Press, 1997 P. 73, 90

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** *Prefaces* p. 6-12 This section is autobiographical and can be related to Kierkegaard's relationship with [Regine Olsen](/source/Regine_Olsen).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Prefaces p. 6-12

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** *Prefaces* p.5

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** *Prefaces* p. 11 Here is an either/or situation. Either give up your writing or give me up. Kierkegaard discussed the idea of the muse several times: Repetition p. 141 compare to Either/Or Part 1, Swenson, The Immediate Stages of the Erotic or the Musical Erotic – p. 43-134

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** See *A Word Of Thanks To Professor Heiberg* [http://sorenkierkegaard.org/word-thanks-professor-heiberg.html](http://sorenkierkegaard.org/word-thanks-professor-heiberg.html)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** Prefaces p. 15, 19

1. **[^](#cite_ref-9)** See *The Concept of Anxiety* p. 41-42, 76-77, 95 and *A Short History of Existentialism* p. 4-5 by [Jean Wahl](/source/Jean_Wahl), 1949 The Philosophical Library

1. **[^](#cite_ref-10)** Prefaces p. 31-35

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [*Prefaces/Writing Sampler, Light Reading For People in Various Estates According to Time and Opportunity*](https://books.google.com/books?id=WSEYSA_kWFYC), by Nicolaus Notabene, Edited and Translated by Todd W. Nichol, 1997, Princeton University Press

### Secondary sources

- [*Eminent authors of the nineteenth century*. Literary portraits (1886) by Georg Brandes](https://archive.org/stream/cu31924027150519#page/n7/mode/2up) Brandes references Kierkegaard quite often in this book.

- [Anthony D Storm's Commentary on Soren Kierkegaard, *Prefaces*](http://sorenkierkegaard.org/prefaces.html)

## External links

- Quotations related to [Prefaces](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:Search/Prefaces) at Wikiquote

v t e Søren Kierkegaard Influence and reception Philosophy Theology Bibliography Works 1841–1846 On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates Either/Or De omnibus dubitandum est Two Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 Repetition Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 Fear and Trembling Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 Two Upbuilding Discourses, 1844 Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1844 Philosophical Fragments Prefaces The Concept of Anxiety Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1844 Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions Stages on Life's Way Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments Two Ages: A Literary Review 1847–1854 Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits Works of Love Christian Discourses The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air Two Minor Ethical-Religious Essays The Sickness unto Death Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays Practice in Christianity The Book on Adler For Self-Examination Posthumous The Point of View of My Work as an Author Judge for Yourselves! Writing Sampler Ideas Angst Anguish Authenticity Double-mindedness Infinite qualitative distinction Knight of faith Leap of faith Levelling Present age Ressentiment Rotation method Despair People Regine Olsen Peter Kierkegaard Hans Lassen Martensen Jacob Peter Mynster J. L. Heiberg Thomasine Christine Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd Adolph Peter Adler Related topics Danish Golden Age Søren Kierkegaard Research Center Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library Prayers of Kierkegaard Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Rosenborggade 7–9 Skindergade 38 (last home) Statue of Søren Kierkegaard The Central European Institute Søren Kierkegaard Søren Kierkegaard as Philosopher

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