9 Knowledgeable Limericks about Kierkegaard

Like Jacob with the angel in the cave, I stayed up all night wrestling with the complete works of Kierkegaard. The outcome was something alarming and eldritch. So I’ve done my best to document the transcendent experience with this unique series of philosophical limericks about Kierkegaard.

In his short life of just 42 years, Søren Kierkegaard managed to produce what was probably the greatest contribution to Danish literature of all time. And while his prose sometimes achieves Hegelian levels of inscrutability, there’s no doubt that Kierkegaard was also a writer with a keen sense of humor and a deep appreciation for the ironic.

Kierkegaard penned his most salient works of philosophy pseudonymously, which has led to a lot of conjecture about whether the author truly subscribed to the opinions he was espousing. Tracts and treatises by the likes of Johannes de Silentio and Victor Eremita put forth a wealth of provocative ideas dealing with man, God, the self and the very nature of existence. Various essays inveigle against contemporary philosophers, mass media, the church and the state.

In the end, it’s not so important what the man personally believed. Frankly, I have a hard time respecting an unwavering philosopher who has never undergone a change of mind, or even a change of heart. What matters are the ideas he produced, the intellectual fodder he handed down, for generations of philosophers, poets and thinkers to chew on and wrestle with.

Existential Epiphany
Resigned to existence with hardly a care
I stumbled on Kierkegaard’s Notes on Despair
And felt so myopic
Confronting this topic
His absolute paradox no one can bear

Once Before God
Protestant, Atheist, Muslim or Quaker
Each for one moment must meet with his maker
Confronting the border
Of ultimate order
There’s no time for lies and no place for a faker

Kierkegaardian Truth
For Søren the truth was a way of existing
And not a collection of facts in a listing
What’s right is subjective
So find your objective
Determine the purpose that’s worth your persisting

Either / Or
The low-scoring “Victor” they call the Hermetic
Uncovered the writings of “A” the aesthetic
The brazen seducer
Who feigned to reduce her
Embraced neither-nor and despised the ascetic

Either and Or
On a tightrope we walk with distinct apprehension
As time and eternity hang in suspension
While facing the menace
We ponder the premise
That can’t be resolved without spoiling the tension

Fear and Trembling
By virtue of something absurd
Father Abe he took God at his word
But Zach made a peep
Asking: Where is our sheep?
Oh the Lord will provide from his herd!

Knight of Faith
One knight advances with grave resignation
Surrenders his will and without expectation
But faith supersedes
For the knight who proceeds
And accepts a new ethic beyond explanation

The Self in Relation to the Self
According to Kierkegaard’s latest edition
The self is a spirit in strict opposition
He goes on to mention
A few forms of tension
Comprising a person’s disturbing condition

Unscientific Postscript: A Leap of Faith
There’s more than one truth that is fixed and eternal
For each of us harbors the answers internal
Though some are mistaken
The choice must be taken
But faith without wisdom is something infernal

Further Reading

References

In the beginning was the worm

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