Although the research community in the English-speaking world has witnessed a new wave of interest in Kierkegaard's work over the last several years, the secondary literature has remained somewhat uneven, often treating him as a figure isolated from the intellectual tradition and context out of which his thought was born. Few of the major commentators do much to situate his thought vis-à-vis the tradition of German idealism which preceded him or the Danish philosophical milieu in which he was educated, and it is here that many issues and connections remain to be explored. One of the issues that has hitherto been treated most unevenly is the complex relation of Kierkegaard's philosophy to that of Hegel. The general importance of a study of this relation should be self-evident to any student of Kierkegaard's thought. References to Hegel occur throughout his literary corpus from his earliest works, and his contact with Hegelianism has often been seen as one of the most important dimensions of his biography and intellectual development. Many aspects of Kierkegaard's thinking, such as his conception of stages, his dialectical methodology, and his understanding of Socrates and Antigone, seem to recall key doctrines and analyses from Hegel's philosophy. While many scholars would agree that much of Kierkegaard's rich and diverse thought is best understood as being in a sort of dialogue with Hegel's philosophy, few have done much to establish the concrete points of contact in a historical fashion.