Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Kierkegaard on the Poet and Poetry

"What is a poet?" asks Kierkegaard in his book Either/Or  "An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music".
Kierkegaard regarded himself as a religious poet. In Fear and Trembling he held that he cannot imitate the action of the hero Abraham but what he can do is give them words and glory, that is the task and fate of the poet. But poetry is not an ideal for Kierkegaard who thinks that a poetic relationship with real life is an escape from responsibility.