Repetition

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's book Repetition was published in 1843 on the same day as another book, Trembling and Fear. The main theme in both books is loss and bereavement, and then the passionate and eager quest to regain that loss. Just as Abraham in Trembling and Fear had to sacrifice his son and then regain him again, Repetition is about a young man who has lost his love and longs for the return of his beloved, who is in fact Kierkegaard himself, and the story of his love with Regina Olsen and his engagement to her, then the unhappy end to which that engagement ended and his constant longing for her return to him. In addition, there is the inclusion of the story of Job and the hardships and suffering he faced in his life, and then his recovery of his lost world later on.

The repetition is, in its general framework, a love story or a short novel that describes the human conflict between his ideal aesthetic and moral positions, written instead of Kierkegaard, as in many of his works, by a writer under the pseudonym Constantin Constantius, according to the writing style that Kierkegaard calls indirect communication, through which he aims to depersonalize the theme he deals with in the book, and to involve the reader and urge him to take a position on the issues raised, so that they become more comprehensive in nature.