Kierkegaard: A Biography. . - Reviews - book review

Contemporary Review, March, 2002

Kierkegaard: A Biography. Alastair Hannay. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00 (US$39.95). 496 pages. ISBN 0-521-56077-2. Professor Hannay is widely recognised as a leading authority on the philosophy and writings of Kierkegaard. In this biography he seeks to place his subject in the context of his times because, he argues, his subject's life was 'a conflict...

waged with himself and his surroundings'. Because this is an intellectual biography of a philosopher and writer, the author eschews the usual chronological approach. He tries to 'treat its subject historically', to unravel the mystery in which the great philosopher of subjectivity, and later hero of existentialists, shrouded his own life. It is, he argues, only by unravelling these mysteries to show the relevant contexts of Kierkegaard's life that one can begin to see the full value of his philosophy. The author's aim is to allow readers 'to make better-informed judgments about where Kierkegaard himself would feel at home among the many trends with which his name has been connected'.