Will Williams

Both Zhuangzi and Søren Kierkegaard use fables to portray humor- ous and clever insights about life. Here two fables are drawn from the first chapter of the Zhuangzi and compared from a variety of per- spectives with two fables found in Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Dis- courses in Various Spirits. Questions about the value of comparing oneself with others, the character of dependence and independence, and matters related to self-identity and utility are explored. Contrasts related to theological concerns in Kierkegaard and their absence in Zhuangzi, as well as the former’s promotion of wuwei spontaneity rather than Kierkegaard’s emphasis on making deter- mined choices are highlighted.

Mephistopheles is the term for the demon or devil found in the Faust tradition, going back to its origins in the sixteenth century. Kierkegaard’s writing on the figure, then, at times touches upon the conception of the Devil in Christian theology, but often his observations about Mephistopheles are confined to the demonic literary figure and cannot necessarily be applied directly to traditional Christian conceptions of the Devil. For example, in one journal entry Kierkegaard quotes Goethe’s Mephistopheles, despite his demonic identity, and seems to approve of his words as a patient reminder of the existence of eternity and God.

This paper examines the idea presented in Søren Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony (1841) and Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846) that irony, far more than a rhetorical device, is an existential category that gives birth to the subjectively existing single individual. As such, irony is no diversion from or necessary undercutting of one’s ethical growth but is a required step in fostering it. Although Kierkegaard preferred to focus on the individual, irony nevertheless plays an essential role in issues of social justice and politics, since the self must be distinguished from its social environment if there is to be any hope for one’s being useful in changing it for the better, and irony is the means by which the distinguishing of the self occurs. For example, since Kierkegaard believes that politics is at best only provisional and approximate, irony has an important role in chastening overweening political forces, which are often accompanied by human rights abuses. Irony secures room for individuals who have an inner infinity that can never be utterly conformed to the strictures of finite politics. Thus, as Kierkegaard presents it, irony’s birth of the single individual is shown to be politically significant.

The influence of German Romanticism on nineteenth-century Denmark, especially given the celebrated cultural and linguistic research of brothers Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859), led to a similar Danish interest in folk tales, myths, and fairy stories. Naturally, Kierkegaard participated in this cultural interest in folk and fairy literature, including stories from both his native Denmark and beyond. In his own employment of such fairy tales, though, it should be noted that Kierkegaard’s use is not haphazard or capricious. Kierkegaard is very reflective about the nature and function of fairy tales and uses them in his writing for his own philosophical and theological purposes. What might, in another context, appear to be stories of simple amusement or diversion become tools in Kierkegaard’s hands to illustrate or to polemicize against given philosophical points that have captured his passion.
While several classes of fairy creatures are worthy of analysis in Kierkegaard’s writing, this article will limit itself to three in particular: elves, trolls, and nisses. These three are considered in relation because, at times, Kierkegaard either associates them or defines them in contrast to one another. The following analysis hopes to clarify what Kierkegaard takes to be the defining characteristics of each class and, further, to indicate some philosophical and aesthetic concerns that may be driving his use of them.