Kierkegaard and Andersen Part 2 4 April

Andersen and Kierkegaard first met in the mid 1830’s in literary circles in Copenhagen when Andersen, still barely into his thirties, was just beginning to establish himself as a playwright and Kierkegaard was a brilliant young theology student of twenty two, who had not yet published anything, but was judged by his peers as a scholar of great promise. But they never became close, certainly not enough to address each other with the ‘ du’ of intimacy and social equality. A sense of mutual incomprehension seems to have set in from the start.

In 1835 Kierkegaard noted in his journal his judgement of Andersen’s play ‘ Agnete and the Merman’, calling it ‘ wretched’ before elaborating:

‘ There are authors who, like beggars seeking to arouse sympathy by exposing the flaws and deformities of their body, strive to reveal the tattered state of their heart to attract attention.’