Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions
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 First edition, title page. | |
| Author | Søren Kierkegaard |
|---|---|
| Original title | Tre Taler ved tænkte Leiligheder |
| Working title | Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions |
| Translators | David F. Swenson and Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong |
| Cover artist | Frank Mahood |
| Language | Danish |
| Subject | Christianity |
| Published | April 29, 1845 |
| Publication place | Denmark |
| Media type | Hardback |
| Pages | 114 |
| ISBN | 9780691140742 |
| Preceded by | Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1844 |
| Followed by | Stages on Life's Way |
Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (1845) is a book written by Søren Kierkegaard.
Contents
[edit]Soren Aaby Kierkegaard published Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions on April 29, 1845, and Stages on Life's Way on April 30, 1845. Both books were divided into three sections: confession, marriage and death. David F. Swenson translated the book as Thoughts on Crucial Situations in Human Life in 1941, and Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong did so again in 1993 under the title, Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions.
Each of these books revolves around the anxiety of making a decision. Kierkegaard also wrote on the subject in his other writings.
What It Means to Seek God
[edit]In the book, he suspects that his father Michael suffered from a "sickness of the spirit" due to something he had done as a young man or while grieving the loss of his first wife Lee M. Hollander. He writes that his father was only twelve when he cursed God, and didn't have faith that he would forgive him while he was still young.[1][2][3]
Kierkegaard then warns against expressing skepticism because "the most dangerous condition is that of the one who is deceived by much knowledge,"[4] Kierkegaard again discussed this in his 1847 book, Works of Love in an effort to show how useless it is to compare sin for sin and guilt for guilt.
Kierkegaard was interested in "how" one comes to acquire knowledge. Adolph Peter Adler's experience may have influenced this writing, as he identified his audience as the "reader" and the "listener".[6] He writes, "No man can see God without purity,” and “no man can know God without becoming a sinner.” He also wrote greatly about "expectancy" and where it is found. He writes, "Sin is the common lot of the human race".[7][8]
The Decisiveness of Death
[edit]Throughout the book Kierkegaard discusses the "confession of sin before God" and the confession of love for another. Unlike his book Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, he describes the earnest confession before God, marriage, and death as teachers of another kind that accompanies generations. Later, he uses the metaphor "lily of the field and the bird of the air" as teachers for what it means to be a human being, referring to them as "divinely appointed teachers".[9][10]
Criticism
[edit]Kierkegaard self-published this book by printing 525 copies, however only 175 were sold by 1847. A second edition was published in 1875, and he had already finished his concluding postscript and delivered it to his printer in December 1845.[11]
David F. Swenson translated many of Kierkegaard's works into English and helped introduce him to the English reading public in 1916. The translated copy was published in 1941.
Howard V. Hong said Kierkegaard had “seeds for more than six discourses in mind".[12] John Gates scarcely mentioned the Imagined Discourses in his book on the life of Kierkegaard, but he did describe it as a turning point in the development of his vocation and an insight into his manner of writing.[13]
References
[edit]
- ^ See Book Seven of The Autobiography of Johann Goethe, p. 218ff
- ^ Kierkegaard was very interested in the way children are educated; see Practice in Christianity, Hong p. 174ff, Three Imagined Discourses, Swenson translation p. 53-58, 87ff., 94-95
- ^ “Of very few authors can it be said with the same literalness as, of Kierkegaard that their life is their works: as if to furnish living proof of his untiring insistence on inwardness, his life, like that of so many other spiritual educators of the race, is notably poor in incidents; but his life of inward experiences is all the richer - witness the "literature within a literature" that came to be within a few years and that gave to Danish letters a score of immortal works. Kierkegaard's physical heredity must be pronounced unfortunate. Being the child of old parents -his father was fifty‑seven, his mother forty‑five years. At his birth (May 5, 1813), he had a weak physique and a feeble constitution. Still worse, he inherited from his father a burden of melancholy which he took a sad pride in masking under a show of sprightliness. His father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, had begun life as a poor cotter's boy in West Jutland, where he was set to tend the sheep on the wild moorlands. One day, we are told, oppressed by loneliness and cold, he ascended a hill and in a passionate rage cursed God who had given him this miserable existence - the memory of which "sin against the Holy Ghost" he was not able to shake off to the end of his long life. When seventeen years old, the gifted lad was sent to his uncle in Copenhagen, who was a well‑to‑do dealer in woolens and groceries. Kierkegaard quickly established himself in the trade and amassed a considerable fortune. This enabled him to withdraw from active life when only forty, and to devote himself to philosophic studies, the leisure for which life had till then denied him. More especially he seems to have studied the works of the rationalistic philosopher Wolff. After the early death of his first wife who left him no issue, he married a former servant in his household, also of Jutish stock, who bore him seven children. Of these only two survived him, the oldest son - later bishop - Peder Christian, and the youngest son, Sören Åbye.
- Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard, translated by L. M. Hollander, Published 1923 by University of Texas in Austin, Introduction p. 12 and See this entry from the Journals and Papers of Kierkegaard 2A805
- ^ Three Discourses On Imagined Occasions, Soren Kierkegaard, June 17, 1844, Hong 1993 p. 35ff
- ^ Soren Kierkegaard, The Point of View for My Work as An Author, Lowrie translation, 1939, 1962 p. 128 Works of Love, Hong 1995 p. 202-203
- ^ Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, Hong p. 35ff
- ^ Soren Kierkegaard, Three Imaginary Discourses, Swenson p. 15, Hong 18-20
- ^ "Faith is a marvel, and yet no human being is excluded from it; for that which unites all human life is passion, and faith is a passion. Fear and Trembling, Hong p. 67 With a smile or with tears, one confesses that expectancy is in the soul originally. Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Hong p. 220
- ^ Prayer: Father in heaven! From you come only good and perfect gifts. It must also be beneficial to comply with the counsel and teaching of whomever you have appointed as a teacher of human beings, as a counselor to the worried. Grant, then, that the one who is worried may truly learn from the divinely appointed teachers: the lilies in the field and the birds of the air! Amen. Soren Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, 1847 Hong translation p. 157ff]
- ^ Matthew 6 and Luke 12
- ^ Hong’s Introduction to Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, Soren Kierkegaard, The Point of View for My Work as an Author, Lowrie p. 53
- ^ Howard V. Hong, Historical Introduction to Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions. P. ix 1993
- ^ Gregor Malantschuk, Kierkegaard's Way to the Truth, 1963 Augsburg Publishing House p. 57
External links
[edit]
Quotations related to Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions at Wikiquote- Love Conquers All Complete text, Swenson translation
- Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions Princeton University Press
- Thoughts on crucial situations in human life; three discourses on imagined occasions, by Søren Kierkegaard, translated from the Danish by David F. Swenson, edited by Lillian Marvin Swenson Haithi trust
- Prefaces and Writing Sampler: And, Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions edited by Robert L. Perkins Mercer University Press, 2006
- David F Swenson, The Category of the Unknowable (September 14, 1905) archive.org
- Anthony Storm on Kierkegaard's Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions