EitherOr
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand) · 7 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~300,000 words · 1,436 passages
Cite this work
- APASøren Kierkegaard. (n.d.). EitherOr. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/kierkegaard/eitheror
- MLASøren Kierkegaard. EitherOr. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/kierkegaard/eitheror.
- ChicagoSøren Kierkegaard. EitherOr. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/kierkegaard/eitheror.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Two ways of living set side by side with no arbiter: the papers of the aesthete 'A' — among them the essay on Mozart's Don Giovanni and the Seducer's Diary — and the letters of Judge William, who defends ethical choice and marriage.
Context and history
Published in 1843 under the pseudonym Victor Eremita, who claims to have found the papers in an old writing desk. Kierkegaard never says who is right, and that is not coyness: if the book decided for you, the choice it demands would no longer be yours. The title is the whole demand.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
correction, for the matter does not stand just as he relates, even though among the ancients there is some uncertainty in the designation of who the seven sages were, but I still did not think it worth the trouble; it seemed to me that his remark, even though not exactly historical, did have another value. As early as five years ago, I had reached the point where Iam at present; I had ordered the papers as they are now arranged, had decided to publish them, but nevertheless felt it was best to wait for a time. I considered five years a suitable interval. These five years are over, and I begin where] left off. Presumably I need not reassure the reader that I have not left untried any means of tracing the authors. The secondhand dealer did not keep records, which, as is commonly known, is rarely the xii xiv 12 Either/Or, I case with secondhand dealers; he did not know from whom he had purchased that piece of furniture. He seemed to remember buying it at a mixed auction. I shall not venture to tell the reader about the many futile attempts that have cost me so much time, so much the less because recollection of them is no pleasure to me. I can share the results with the reader very briefly, for the results were nothing at all.