Kierkegaard’s Authorship as Eucharistic Liturgy
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Tekoa N. Robinson
Abstract
This article will argue that much of Kierkegaard’s authorship is reflective of the characteristics of the Eucharistic liturgy found in the 1830 Forordnet Alter-Bog for Danmark (confession, invitation, preparation/exhortation, consecration, and thanksgiving/praise/blessing), particularly as each of those elements of the liturgy are reflected in his seven Discourses at the Communion on Fridays in Part IV of Christian Discourses. Major components of his authorship function as an indirect invitation to the single individual reader to inwardly experience the prototype-redeemer dialectic as it was enacted in a typical Eucharistic liturgy of Kierkegaard’s day. The readers of Kierkegaard’s work make interpretive decisions not only about Kierkegaard’s texts, but most importantly about themselves, God, and the paradox of Christ, such that by the time they finish the authorship they find themselves inwardly standing at the foot of the altar, either offended by the paradox of Christ and ready to turn and leave, or beating their breasts alongside the tax collector.
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Front matter
- Title pages
- Preface
- Contents
- Articles
- Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
- Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
- Kierkegaard’s Aesthete in Either/Or: Using Hegelian Mediation in Everyday Life
- Kierkegaard on the Dancers of Faith and of Infinity
- Climacus’ Miracle: Another Look at “the Wonder” in Philosophical Fragments through a Spinozist Lens
- Naked Before God: Kierkegaard’s Liturgical Self
- Das palimpsestische Selbst. Zur Genese, Struktur, Darstellung und Vermittlung von personaler Identität nach Sören Kierkegaard
- Das Verhältnis von Selbstwerdung und Gott bei Sören Kierkegaard. Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme
- Kierkegaard’s Secret Politics of Anguish and Love
- Kierkegaard as a Thinker of Alienation
- To Be(come) Love Itself: Charity as Acquired Originality
- Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
- Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
- Pseudonyms? What Pseudonyms? There were no Pseudonyms…
- A Prompter’s Play? Kierkegaard’s Puzzling Portrait of Authorial Withdrawal in “An Occasional Discourse”
- Kierkegaard’s Authorship as Eucharistic Liturgy
- Section 3: Kierkegaardian Resources for Current Debates and Challenges
- Section 3: Kierkegaardian Resources for Current Debates and Challenges
- Defiance Before the Law: Kierkegaard, Kafka, Coetzee
- Existence Philosophy as a Humanism?
- Towards a Kierkegaardian Retreating of the Political
- Weird Allies? Kierkegaard and Object-Oriented Ontology
- Unplug Your Life: Digital Detox Through a Kierkegaardian Lens
- “Out into the Middle of Life”: The Age of Disintegration and Ecological Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Back matter
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Front matter
- Title pages
- Preface
- Contents
- Articles
- Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
- Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
- Kierkegaard’s Aesthete in Either/Or: Using Hegelian Mediation in Everyday Life
- Kierkegaard on the Dancers of Faith and of Infinity
- Climacus’ Miracle: Another Look at “the Wonder” in Philosophical Fragments through a Spinozist Lens
- Naked Before God: Kierkegaard’s Liturgical Self
- Das palimpsestische Selbst. Zur Genese, Struktur, Darstellung und Vermittlung von personaler Identität nach Sören Kierkegaard
- Das Verhältnis von Selbstwerdung und Gott bei Sören Kierkegaard. Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme
- Kierkegaard’s Secret Politics of Anguish and Love
- Kierkegaard as a Thinker of Alienation
- To Be(come) Love Itself: Charity as Acquired Originality
- Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
- Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
- Pseudonyms? What Pseudonyms? There were no Pseudonyms…
- A Prompter’s Play? Kierkegaard’s Puzzling Portrait of Authorial Withdrawal in “An Occasional Discourse”
- Kierkegaard’s Authorship as Eucharistic Liturgy
- Section 3: Kierkegaardian Resources for Current Debates and Challenges
- Section 3: Kierkegaardian Resources for Current Debates and Challenges
- Defiance Before the Law: Kierkegaard, Kafka, Coetzee
- Existence Philosophy as a Humanism?
- Towards a Kierkegaardian Retreating of the Political
- Weird Allies? Kierkegaard and Object-Oriented Ontology
- Unplug Your Life: Digital Detox Through a Kierkegaardian Lens
- “Out into the Middle of Life”: The Age of Disintegration and Ecological Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Back matter
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors