The Sickness Unto Death

4.09(11362 readers)

First published in 1849 under the pseudonym “Anti-Climacus,” Soren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death endures as a seminal text in the history of theology and moral philosophy, and an essential companion to his earlier works. Beginning with the biblical story of Lazarus, whom Jesus miraculously raised from the dead, Kierkegaard here presents his explication of despair as the “sickness unto death,” that is, a sickness not of the body, but of the spirit, and thus, of the self. A dramatic “medical history” of the course of this sickness, The Sickness unto Death culminates, as all medical histories do, in a crisis, a turning point at which the self, the patient, either realizes or abandons itself. Masterfully translated by Bruce H. Kirmmse, with his “historian’s eye” and “craftsman’s feel for the challenges of Kierkegaard’s syntax” (Vanessa Parks Rumble), this trenchant, explosive inquiry into the human soul spares no one, not even its author.

Publisher

Liveright

Publication Date

2/14/2023

ISBN

9781324091257

Pages

220

Categories

Literature

About the Author

Søren Kierkegaard

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.