Christian Discourses: The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress

Kierkegaard's Writings #17

by Søren Kierkegaard, Edna Hatlestad Hong, Howard Vincent Hong

First published in 1848, Christian Discourses is a quartet of pieces written and arranged in contrasting styles. Parts One and Three, "The Cares of the Pagans" and "Thoughts That Wound from Behind--for Upbuilding," serve as a polemical overture to Kierkegaard's collision with the established order of Christendom. Yet Parts Two and Four, "Joyful Notes in the Strife of Suffering" and "Discourses at the Communion on Fridays," are reassuring affirmations of the joy and blessedness of Christian life in a world of adversity and suffering. Written in ordinary language, the work combines simplicity and inwardness with reflection and presents crucial Christian concepts and presuppositions with unusual clarity.

Kierkegaard continued in the pattern that he began with his first pseudonymous esthetic work, Either/Or, by pairing Christian Discourses with The Crisis, an unsigned esthetic essay on contemporary Danish actress Joanne Luise Heiberg.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Drama, Theology, Religion

512 pages, Hardcover

First published April 26, 1848

About the author

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a prolific 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian. Kierkegaard strongly criticised both the Hegelianism of his time and what he saw as the empty formalities of the Church of Denmark. Much of his work deals with religious themes such as faith in God, the institution of the Christian Church, Christian ethics and theology, and the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with life choices. His early work was written under various pseudonyms who present their own distinctive viewpoints in a complex dialogue.

Kierkegaard left the task of discovering the meaning of his works to the reader, because "the task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted". Scholars have interpreted Kierkegaard variously as an existentialist, neo-orthodoxist, postmodernist, humanist, and individualist.

Crossing the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, and literature, he is an influential figure in contemporary thought.

Reviews

[John Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who has read my other reviews will know that Soren can't go wrong in my book. With that said, the second part of the book, The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, will seem like a let down after the Christian Discourses. The Crisis is about Kierkegaard's perspective on acting, essentially, which is interesting, but I think for many readers will seem far less meaningful than Christian Discourses.

Many of S.K.'s works are hard to read, philosophical works that take a lot of concentration and are Christian only because they point to God but don't actually preach. Here, S.K. preaches. The way that he does is by taking a single verse of scripture and then diving deep, again and again, and again, to flesh out meaning and inspiration. It's all about coming to know the fullness of God's love and being inspired to grow as a disciple. Powerful reading.

[Paul O'Leary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christian Discourses come from Kierkegaard’s middle period of authorship. They’re lovingly translated by Howard and Edna Hong, who were also overseers of Princeton’s complete works of Kierkegaard. Some writers possess such an inimitable grace of style that it’s almost easy to think that it can actually transcend the translator. Certainly a gifted writer can draw the best a translator has to offer, but their service to the reading public cannot be ignored with justice. With the Hongs’ translations in this volume a reader is treated to some of the finest Danish ever written in some of the most elegant, yet readable English ever written.

A sample of the goods from the first paragraph of The Care of Poverty:
“This care the bird does not have.(Italics in the original) What does the bird live on? At this point we shall not speak about the lily; it is easy for the lily—it lives on air—but what does the bird live on? The public authority has much to care for. At times it has the concern that there are some who have nothing to live on, but then, in turn, at other times it is not satisfied that a person has something to live on and he is summoned and asked what he is living on. What, then, does the bird live on? Certainly not on what it gathers into barbs, since it does not gather into barbs—and actually never does live on what one has lying in the barn. But what, then, does the bird live on? The bird cannot explain itself. If it is summonsed, it presumably would have to answer as did the man blind from birth who had given him his sight, ‘I do not know, but this I do know—I live.’ What, then, does it live on? The bird lives on the daily bread(italics), this heavenly food that is never stale, this enormous supply that is kept so well that is kept so well that no one can steal it, because the thief can steal only what ‘is saved over night’—what is used during the day no one can steal.”

So simple, yet so deep in feeling, Kierkegaard’s middle period appears to have little of that youthful angst and enthusiasm which makes Either/Or, Concept of Irony, and Fear and Trembling so exciting and beautiful. But it also has yet to assume the burden of negative angst the elder Kierkegaard experienced in his relationship with the institution of religion in Copenhagen. The waves have calmed in these Discourses into a subtle harmony, but they pull back toward the storm coming ahead.

Included also in this volume is SK’s Crisis in the Life of an Actress. Kierkegaard explores why a fully mature actress is far superior to a young, popular ingénue.

[Adam Chandler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two of Kierkegaard's later books placed together into one volume by way of publication instead of unity of theme.

Christian Discourses (4 stars) is a collection of Kierkegaard's uplifting discourses, which are essentially lay sermons. He talks on a number of biblical passages which all happen to be ethically based, which is expected given Kierkegaard's pietistic leanings. As a Lutheran pastor myself, I find them lacking in deliverance of the actual Gospel (Christ's salvation for you) in light of your fulfilment of God's Law; however, Kierkegaard does have some good insights from time to time such as looking to being lost in the love of God in doing good works. This is the Third Use of the Law where we no longer do God's commands out of compulsion but out of love for Him who has forgiven and saved us.

The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress (5 stars) is a short collection of writings Kierkegaard made, in particular a letter he wrote to a young actress, which gets into the philosophy of idolatry in plays. An actress is only accepted as an unchanging youth. Her abilities are overshadowed by her appearance although the acting itself is what should lose us in the story that we might understand the higher narratives being communicated.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

And I will remind myself that, after all, every human being is alone, alone in the infinite world. Yes, in good days, in fair weather when good fortune smiles, then it does indeed seem as if we lived in association with one another, but I will call to mind that no one can know when the news will come to me, the news of tragedy, of misery, of horror, news that along with the terror will also make me alone or make it evident how alone I am, as is every human being, will make me alone, abandoned by my nearest and dearest, misunderstood by my best friend, an object of anxiety that everyone shuns. I will remind myself of the horrors that scream of no alarm, no tears, no pleas warded off, the horrors that have separated a lover from the beloved, friend from friend, parents from children; and I will remind myself of how a little misunderstanding, if it came so fatally ill-starred, was sometimes enough to separate them dreadfully. I will remind myself that, humanly speaking, there is no one, no, no one at all, to depend on, not even God in heaven. If I really hold to him, I would become his friend -- ah, who has suffered more, who has been more tested in every suffering than the devout person who was God's friend.