Volume 16, Tome I: Kierkegaard's Literary Figures and Motifs

Agamemnon to Guadalquivir

Katalin Nun, Jon Stewart

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781032098951
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351874878
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism for Comparative Literature
• Index: Literature

While Kierkegaard is perhaps known best as a religious thinker and philosopher, there is an unmistakable literary element in his writings. He often explains complex concepts and ideas by using literary figures and motifs that he could assume his readers would have some familiarity with. This dimension of his thought has served to make his writings far more popular than those of other philosophers and theologians, but at the same time it has made their interpretation more complex. Kierkegaard readers are generally aware of his interest in figures such as Faust or the Wandering Jew, but they rarely have a full appreciation of the vast extent of his use of characters from different literary periods and traditions. The present volume is dedicated to the treatment of the variety of literary figures and motifs used by Kierkegaard. The volume is arranged alphabetically by name, with Tome I covering figures and motifs from Agamemnon to Guadalquivir.

Index of Persons

Abraham, 2–10 passim, 19, 22, 24, 26–8, 35, 43, 47, 127, 128.

Abrahams, Nicolai Christian Levin (1798–1870), Danish scholar and translator, 73.

Abū ‘Ubayd al-Bakrī (ca. 1014–94), Muslim geographer, 281.

Achilles, 2.

Aegisthus, 1.

Aegus, 65.

Aeneas, 98.

Aerope, 1.

Aeschylus, 5, 252–3, 255.

Agamemnon, xi, 1–13.

Agnes, 15–29.

al-Idrīsī (1100–ca. 1165), Moroccan geographer, 280–1.

Aladdin, 31–40.

Alcibiades, 133, 134, 138, 263, 274.

Alecto, 251.

Alpheus, 293, 294.

Amor, xi, 41–8.

Andersen, Hans Christian (1805–75), Danish poet, novelist and writer of fairy tales, xii, 18, 188, 196, 204.

Andersson, Lars (b. 1954), Swedish author, 233.

Antigone, xi, 49–64, 66, 183.

Aphrodite, 46.

Apollo, 252.

Apuleius, i.e., Lucius Apuleius Platonicus (ca. 125–ca. 180), Romanized Berber author, 41–6 passim, 98.

Arethusa, 293, 294.

Argetsinger, Gerald, 202, 206.

Ariadne, xi, 44, 65–9.

Aristotle, 9, 19, 55–7, 59, 149.

Aristoxenus, 149.

Artemis, 1, 2, 5, 65.

Ast, Friedrich (1778–1841), German philosopher, 135–7.

Athena, 252–3.

Atreus, 1.

Attila the Hun, 221.

Auden, W.H. (1907–73), English-born American poet, 168, 292.

Bacchus, 67.

Baggesen, Jens (1764–1826), Danish poet, xii, 17–18.

Baur, Ferdinand Christian (1792–1860), German Protestant theologian, 135–8, 272.

Beaumarchais, Marie (b. 1731), sister of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, 72.

Beaumarchais, Pierre-Augustin Caron de (1732–99), French playwright, 72–3, 76, 104–5, 243.

Bettelheim, Bruno (1903–90), Austrian-born American child psychologist and writer, 42.

Biehl, Charlotte Dorothea (1731–88), Danish author and translator, 160, 283.

Bluebeard, 42, 79–87.

Boesen, Em...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Agamemnon: From Ancient Tragic Hero to Modern Ethical Archetype
• Agnes and the Merman: Abraham as Monster
• Aladdin: The Audacity of Wildest Wishes
• Amor: God of Love—Psyche’s Seducer
• Antigone: The Tragic Art of Either/Or
• Ariadne: Kierkegaard’s View on Women, Life, and Remorse
• Marie Beaumarchais: Kierkegaard’s Account of Feminine Sorrow
• Bluebeard: Demoniac or Tragic Hero?
• Captain Scipio: The Recollection of Phister’s Portrayal as the Comic par excellence
• Cerberus: Deceiving a Watchdog and Relying on God
• Clavigo: A Little Tale about the Sense of Guilt
• Coach Horn: Kierkegaard’s Ambivalent Valedictory to a Disappearing Instrument
• Desdemona: The Ill-Starred Heroine of Indirect Communication
• Diotima: Teacher of Socrates and Kierkegaard’s Advocate for the Mythical
• Don Juan (Don Giovanni): Seduction and its Absolute Medium in Music
• Don Quixote: Kierkegaard and the Relation between Knight-Errant and Truth-Witness
• Donna Elvira: The Colossal Feminine Character, from donna abbandonata to the Embodiment of Modern Sorrow
• Elves, Trolls, and Nisses: The Relevance of Supernatural Creatures to Aestheticism, Philosophical Rationalism, and the Christian Faith
• Erasmus Montanus: The Tragi-Comic Victim of the Crowd
• Faust: The Seduction of Doubt
• The Fenris Wolf: Unreal Fetters and Real Forces in Søren Kierkegaard’s Authorship
• Figaro: The Character and the Opera he Represents
• Furies: The Phenomenal Representation of Guilt
• Gadfly: Kierkegaard’s Relation to Socrates
• Guadalquivir: Kierkegaard’s Subterranean Fluvial Pseudonymity
• Index of Persons
• Index of Subjects