Introductions

Section: Thought and philosophy

Number of pages: 117 pages

Peter Ludvig Møller, a prominent Danish writer of the time and an opponent of Kierkegaard's, described it as "not only one of the most ironic, but also the most unconditionally elegant texts ever written against Heiberg... I cannot remember any argumentative writing in Danish that was as brilliant as it." Kierkegaard described these prefaces as "like tuning a guitar, or chatting with a child, or spitting out of a window." He urged his critics to read the prefaces to his books, because, in his view, they were the key to understanding them. They "contain things of the utmost importance." The prefaces include playful satire of intellectual and literary figures of Kierkegaard's time, and provide a picture of the intellectual, literary and cultural atmosphere of the time, along with a more general discussion of Danish Hegelianism.