Søren Kierkegaard & Style

Though familiar with, this is my first time reading a primary text of Kierkegaard and it won't be my last because I am more confused than when I started and feel that I may have 'misread' it entirely. Stylistically it is very dense with Biblical allusions, metaphors, prolonged analogies and erratic prose that make is difficult to derive any one possible meaning from the text. With that in mind, I interpreted "Repetition" as an experiment in showcasing how recollection and the envisioning of an "ideal" is counterproductive to existence because its constructs a reality that is contained to a temporal space that is unattainable in the present. Kierkegaard offers repetition as a means of envisioning reality in a way that moves forward with and through time. For example, the Young Man realizes life's repetition once the girl gets married. Instead of recollecting his freedom backwards, he extracts it forwards through repetition of the loss and finds a new appreciation for the repetition of freedom he feels after the loss. This is a very skeletal interpretation of "Repetition," but I focus on it in order to try to connect the form to the content. I think Kierkegaard's style is more literary than philosophical and therefore it becomes very difficult to derive a singular meaning or truth from his work. However I think if you follow some of the prose, you may find that his form parallels the function of the content. I think one thing that Kierkegaard is trying to convey is that subscriptions to an "ideal," or a singular Truth are dangerous or counterproductive to being. He critiques the Young Man's reliance on recollection because it encapsulates the girl in an ideal state that is impossible to recreate in the present and therefore causes more harm to the Young Man. Instead, Kierkegaard offers repetition as a means of constructing the present while also collapsing into the past in order to derive multiple meanings/experiences from singular events. Stylistically, I think he is very conscious of matching form to content and by using a very dense, erratic and somewhat "stream of consciousness" voice, he is capable of forcing his readers to experience the same anxiety the Young Man experiences in trying to derive meaning from his life as the reader must derive meaning from the text.

I also think it is interesting how the book is comprised of Constantin's observations, the young man's letter and then a direct letter to the reader from Constantin. This aesthetic choice is interesting because it adds several layers to the narrative voice. As a reader, we are aware that the book is entirely composed by Kierkegaard, yet, it becomes difficult to determine what is Kierkegaard's opinion when the book is narrated pseudonymously through Constantin and then even further removed from the primary author when told through letters of the Young Man delivered to the reader through Constantin. Stylistically I think this is interesting because the form adds content to the text. This is only an extrapolation that may not be anywhere in the text, but I interpreted the layered narrative voice as a means of showing multiple extensions of Kierkegaard. If one purpose of the text is to explore how repetition results in plurality and difference, then it is interesting to read the several voices as extensions of the author, or repetitions of Kierkegaard's voice. This is especially evident in the first letter from the Young Man when he writes, "There is something indescribably salutary and alleviating in talking with you, for it seems as if one were talking with oneself of with an idea" (188). It seems to be a means of deriving the multiple out of the one therefore complimenting Kierkegaard's idea that "recollection is a discarded garment that does not fit, however beautiful it is, for one has outgrown it. Repetition is an indestructible garment that fits closely and tenderly, neither binds nor sags" (132) because recollection is temporally static whereas repetition is fluid.