Af en endnu Levendes Papirer: Kritik af en mislykket dannelsesroman?

My intent with the present piece is to show that in From the Papers of One Still Living, Published against His Will by S. Kjerkegaard (1838), Kierkegaard presents us with a critical review of Hans Christian Andersen’s Only a Fiddler (1837), which he bases on his notion that Andersen’s work is a failed attempt at a Bildungsroman. Following a brief presentation of the assumptions—both those concerning aesthetics and those that were typical of the period—implicit in Kierkegaard’s review, I point out a number of aspects of Andersen’s novel in connection with which I maintain that Kierkegaard himself does not live up to his own requirement that Andersen embrace a correct “outlook on life.” I support my argument by investigating the rhetoric of Kierkegaard’s review, and I conclude by suggesting that both Kierkegaard and Andersen should be considered modern writers and that this is attributable, not least, to their break with the literary metaphysics of the Bildungsroman.