Søren Kierkegaard
1813–1855 2 entries
Biography
Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher and theologian, often called the father of existentialism. He was born in Copenhagen in 1813, the youngest child of a wealthy and deeply religious wool merchant, and studied theology at the university there. In 1840 he became engaged to Regine Olsen, but he broke off the engagement a year later, a decision that haunted him and his writing for the rest of his life.
Many of his books appeared under pseudonyms, among them Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death. In them he set the single, choosing individual against abstract systems and the crowd, and wrote of anxiety, despair and the leap of faith. In his last years he attacked the Danish state church in a series of pamphlets. He collapsed in the street and died in Copenhagen in 1855, at forty-two; his work, little known outside Denmark in his lifetime, deeply influenced the philosophy and theology of the twentieth century.
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