Repetition

One of the quotes from Repetition that I think really symbolizes Kierkegaard's style is, "Recollection's love is the only happy love, says an author who, as far as I know him, is at times somwhat deceitful, not in the sense that he says one thing and means another but in the sense that he pushes the thought to extremes so that if it is not grasped with the same energy, it reveals itself the next instant as something else." Kierkegaard's style is very much the same, and I feel like he was referring to himself when he wrote this. In Kierkegaard's writing there are a web of interconnected theories and observations that can seem contradictory if the meaning of one of them is missed. This, combined with his long-winded style and extravagant and very ornate wording led to me to a similar experience as James: I had to constantly reread passages when I first began this narrative.

Kierkegaard's wording, although it can be quite forceful and filled with lofty ideas, is also very delicate. He seems to add a lot of personal flavor to his phrasing. This personal flavor also goes beyond just his phrasing but extends to the narrative as a whole. I believe this was brought up previously, but it seems that one of the reasons for his use of the name Constantius is to help cultivate a certain persona and a certain style of writing that would not fit if it were him doing the writing.

Kierkegaard's style of writing is a bit akin to a mystery novel in some sense. The way in which he introduces his ideas and then shows seemingly unrelated examples that unfold into an interconnected web leaves a lot of room for the reader to come up with his own theories and can be very thought provoking. The reader must at times fill in some blanks until the real meaning is shown. This seems to be what Kierkegaard was getting at in terms of the overall idea of repetition - that repetition is necessary to live a decent life. Without repetition, life would not be able to exist in any sort of interconnected fashion and it would not be worth living.