Kierkegaard's Hidden Polemics against Heiberg and Martensen in the Last Chapter of The Concept of Irony

Mads Sohl Jessen

Abstract

Søren Kierkegaard mentions two of his Danish contemporaries, Johan Ludvig Heiberg and Hans Martensen, in the final chapter of his master's dissertation The Concept of Irony from 1841. This article seeks to demonstrate that Kierkegaard is actually in this very chapter conducting a hidden polemic against these two important figures of the Danish Golden Age by employing highly ironic allusions to Heiberg's On the Significance of Philosophy for the Present Age (1833) as well as his satirical poem "A Soul after Death" from New Poems (1840) and Martensen's laudatory review of the poem in the newspaper Fædrelandet.

Original languageEnglish
JournalKierkegaard Studies
Volume2011
Pages (from-to)103-114
Number of pages11
ISSN1430-5372
Publication statusPublished - 16 Nov 2011

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Kierkegaard's Hidden Polemics against Heiberg and Martensen in the Last Chapter of The Concept of Irony'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this