For my series of blog posts, I am writing three posts related to that of Seren Kierkegaard. Here is my first post describing his life.
Seren Kierkegaard was born in
Copenhagen, Denmark on May 5th, 1813. Not only was he philosopher,
but he also was a theologian, poet, social critic and religious author. He was
born to his mother Ane Serensdatter Lund Kierkegaard and father Michael
Pederson Kierkegaard. Upon meeting his father, his mother was a housemaid and
later the two married. As a young child, Seren enjoyed walking his city’s
streets. He explained that it was nice walking throughout his city because
everyone got along well in conversation. According to one of Seren’s stories,
“The Great Earthquake,” his father felt that God’s wrath was upon him and in
time none of his children would outlive him. However, his father died before
his children. By this time, Seren had lost his both his parents along with his
siblings except for one of his brothers, Peter. Later on, Seren attended the School
of Civic Virtue in 1830 and studied Latin and history. Some time after, he
studied theology at the University of Copenhagen. Despite his studies, he did
not want to be a philosopher in the traditional sense. Seren claimed, “What I
really need to do is to get clear about what am I to do, not what I must know.”
Throughout his lifetime, he wrote journals describing his philosophies. At one
point he had a fiancée, Regine Olsen, whom he wanted to dedicate his journals
to, but felt he could not do so. Instead, he referred to her in his journals as
“my reader, that single individual.” He met Regine on May 8th, 1837
and later the two became engaged on September 8th, 1840. About a
year later, Seren broke off the engagement, claiming he was not meant for
marriage. So, he decided to focus on his studies and graduated October 20th,
1841.
Did Kierkegaard become so obsessed with faith because his father had articulated his own obsession? The family backstory seems to make his "leap" more like a nudge or a push, driven by Dad's distress.
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