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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2011
The following lines are intended to give an explanation of Kierkegaard's Thorn in the Flesh. They may be of interest not only to the biographer, but also to the student of Kierkegaard's terminology. We shall consider contemporary interpretation and Kierkegaard's own interpretation of the term “the thorn in the flesh,” review later scholarly theories, and finally present our own solution based upon a comparative study of passages from the Diaries, reminiscences of Kierkegaard preserved by his acquaintances, and extracts illustrating contemporary medical opinion.
1 Parts of this article appeared in the Danish literary periodical Orbis Litterarum, Tom. III, 1945, and I wish to thank the editor, Professor Billeskov Jansen, Copenhagen, who kindly permitted me to reprint some passages here. I also thank my friend Mr. Eric Jacobsen of Harvard University, who has read the paper and made valuable suggestions.
Abbreviations: E.D. (Edifying Discourses by S. Kierkegaard, translated by D. E. Swenson and L. M. Swenson, vol. IV). S.U.D. (The Sickness unto Death by S. Kierkegaard, translated by Walter Lowrie, Princeton, 1944). Saml.Skr. (The second edition of Kierkegaard's works in Danish, 1920–36). E.P. (The first edition of the Diaries in Danish, 1869–81). Pap. (The second, complete edition of the Diaries in Danish, 1909–48).
2 The English translation should be corrected in this place: “—and other such matters.”
3 See E.P., 1833–43, p. LII, where the editor of the Diaries writes (1869): “Kierkegaard cherished a great love and veneration for Sibbern. A younger schoolfellow of Kierkegaard's … relates how once, while walking in a park, oppressed by melancholy thoughts, he came across Kierkegaard: Without mentioning the mood which tormented me, Kierkegaard suddenly walked up to me and, in a voice tremulous with sympathy, asked if I knew Professor Sibbern? Him I ought to visit, he was an entire man [en hel Mand], he was amiability's self and there was something soothing in his conversation.”
4 Helweg expressly affirms (op. cit., p. 223), “He asked [Bang] if he could get rid of his depression”; there are no cogent reasons to believe this.
5 See E.P., 1848, p. 53, note by the editor, H. Gottsched; in his later years, Kierkegaard consulted another doctor, Seligmann Meyer Trier (see P. A. Heiberg, S.K. i Barndom og Ungdom, Copenhagen, 1895, p. 38), who, however, was solely concerned with the perfectioning of the art of diagnosis and with the treatment of internal diseases (cf. ‘Biographisk Leksikon’ s.v. Trier); there is no reason to doubt the correctness of Gottsched's statement.
6 ‘Realisere det Almene’: achieve the ordinary, normal in human life. Usually understood by students of K. as the consummation of a marriage, an interpretation justified by the context; Kierkegaard also constantly uses the term in this sense in the closing pages of the chapter of “Either—Or” called “The Balance between the Aesthetic and the Ethical Element in the Formation of Personality.”
7 Lund, Henriette, Erindringer fra Hjemmet, Copenhagen, 1909, pp. 82–83Google Scholar.
8 A few titles may serve as examples: Kleemann, , De morbosa seminis excretione, Monachil, 1831Google Scholar; Thomas, , De spermatorrhoea, Vratislaviae, 1839Google Scholar; Kollreuter, , Studien über die Spermatorrhoe, Tübingen, 1842Google Scholar; Dawson, Richard, An Essay on Spermatorrhoea, London, about 1840Google Scholar.
9 Kierkegaard is known to have fallen in the street because his legs failed him (Heiberg, op. cit., p. 46).
10 The record of this has not been included by Heiberg in the printed extract of the hospital journal.
P.P.S. July 1949. The Royal Library of Copenhagen has three letters (not yet published) from Bang to K. dating from the years 1849–1851. They are very friendly and confidential and show no signs that an estrangement should previously have occurred; on the contrary, in 1850, Bang exchanges the formal address “De” with the familiar “Du.”