Kierkegaard: Either/Or – Part I (Live Reading)

This is the first meeting of Either/Or, and we'll be starting our reading from the Preface.

In Either/Or, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), under the pseudonym Victor Eremita, explores interiority, and the struggle for a meaningful existence wherein one finds lasting happiness. He accomplishes this by portraying two chief personalities: the Aesthete (Book I), and the Judge (Book II). The writings of the aesthete are personal and brooding. Among many aesthetic themes it examines the nature of love, happiness and how to secure these in a lasting way. The writings of the judge are addressed to the aesthete as to a friend, and attempt to convince him that he is putting himself in misery by misunderstanding the themes he has dealt with in Book I.

Text
Part I: pdf, epub
Part II: pdf, epub

Here are the plays we read together before beginning Either/Or:

• Sophocles - Antigone
• Scribe - The First Love
• Goethe - Faust
• Video of a production of Faust I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaogjXLdPow

Additional works you could look at while we read Either/Or:

• Goethe - Clavigo
• Mozart/Ponte - Don Giovanni
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQBmLHSXQdg
• Mozart/Schikaneder - The Magic Flute
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om_qtZ-Hm7k
• Mozart/Ponte - The Marriage of Figaro
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55ik-PzAXsQ

On the Friday Meetings:

The Friday meetings began on January 1, 2016, with an initial goal of reading through the first half of Søren Kierkegaard's works. Due to continued interest, we have decided to return to previous works for review, study more background texts, and continue beyond the first half of Kierkegaard's writing.

Works read so far in the series:

• The Concept of Irony, With Continual Reference to Socrates (Kierkegaard)
• Notes of Schelling's Berlin Lectures (Kierkegaard)
• Either/Or (Victor Eremita, et al.)
• Two Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
• Fear and Trembling (Johannes de Silentio)
• Repetition (Constantin Constantius)
• Three Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
• Four Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
• Two Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
• Three Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
• Philosophical Fragments (Johannes Climacus)
• Johannes Climacus or De Omnibus Dubitandum Est (Johannes Climacus)
• Concept of Anxiety (Vigilius Haufniensis)
• Prefaces (Nicolaus Notabene)
• Writing Sampler (A.B.C.D.E.F. Godthaab)
• Four Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
• Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (Kierkegaard)
• Stages on Life's Way (Hilarious Bookbinder)
• Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments (Johannes Climacus)
• The Sickness Unto Death (Anti-Climacus)
• Works of Love

Works read for background:

• The First Love (Scribe)
• The Berlin Lectures (Schelling)
• Clavigo (Goethe)
• Faust Part I (Goethe)
• Antigone (Sophocles)
• Axioms (Lessing)
• The Little Mermaid (Anderson)

Works read inspired (at least in part) by Kierkegaard

• The Escape from God (Tillich)
• You Are Accepted (Tillich)

Some background on Soren Kierkegaard in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://iep.utm.edu/kierkega/