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A Short Life of Kierkegaard
'In his 'Short Life', Dr Lowrie gives a clear & moving account of the history of Kierkegaard's development & his writings; of the phases & periods of his work; & of the happenings which...helped shape the nature & course of that work.'--Baltimore Evening Sun
284 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1942
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
November 13, 2015
A nice biography about the Danish gadfly - who lived a life of melancholy, and love, and love lost, and much more. SK was a genius, undoubtedly. And learning about many of his experiences from early childhood, his father, and personal journals, and strict religious upbringing, and Regina (his love whom he decided not to marry), as well as how those experiences influenced some of his apparently neurotic and heartbreaking decisions as an adult, was very enlightening for someone such as myself who is slowly but surely reading through the Kierkegaardian corpus. I recommend this biography for those who wish to learn about the experiences behind the pseudonymous writings. Such knowledge certainly does not solve the riddle of his authorship, but it nevertheless adds, so it seems to me, important and noteworthy depth to his writings. As someone interested in literary theory, knowledge of the SK's personal history and experiences can in this instance be extremely enlightening when reading his texts because so many of the themes within them can be found in his life. He was a melancholy man, a passionate genius, a witty jokester, a critic of the masses, a devout Christian, an existentialist (as he has been called by historians).
December 26, 2023
هكذا تكتب السّيَر وإلا فلا
جهد رهيب من وولتر في تحليل حياة ومذكّرات كيركيقارد
وهذا الكتاب العميق الدقيق مختصر عن السيرة الأصل!
جهد رهيب من وولتر في تحليل حياة ومذكّرات كيركيقارد
وهذا الكتاب العميق الدقيق مختصر عن السيرة الأصل!
March 16, 2020
"Having been so indiscreet as to admit that I am a lover of Kierkegaard, I would have it known that this is the Kierkegaard I love - not the dissolute and despairing youth, nor the returning prodigal, nor the unhappy lover, not the genius who created pseudonyms, but the frail man, utterly unfitted to cope with the world, who neverthless was able to confront the real danger of penuary as well as the vain terros his imagination conjured up, and in fear and trembling, fighting with fabulous monsters, ventured as a lone swimmer far out upon the deep, where no human hand could be streched out to save him, and there, with 70,000 fathoms of water under him, for three years held out, waiting for his orders, and then said distinctly that definite thing he was bidden to say, and died with a hallelujah on his lips. I could not love him as I do unless I could venerate him, and I learned to venerate him only when I saw that he had the courage to die as a witness for the truth."
- Walter Lowrie
"As a skillful cook says with regard to a dish in which already a great many ingredients are mingled, 'It needs just a little pinch of cinnamon' (and we perhaps could hardly tell by the taste that this little pinch of spice had entered into it, but the cook knew precisely why and precisely how it affected the taste of the whole mixture)... so it is with divine governance... A little pinch of spice! That is to say: Here a man must be sacrificed, he is needed to impart a particular taste to the rest... Humanly speaking, what a painful thing to be thus sacrificed, to be the little pinch of spice! But on the other hand God knows well the man whom He elects to employ in this way, and so He also knows how, in the inward understanding of it, to make it so blessed a thing for him to be sacrificed, that among the thousands of diverse voices which express, each in its own way, the same thing, his also will be heard, and perhaps especially his, which is truly de profundis, proclaiming: God is love. The birds on the branches, the lilies in the field, the deer in the forest, the fishes in the sea, countless hosts of happy men, exultantly proclaim: God is love. But underneath all these sopranos, supporting them as it were, as the bass part does, is audible the de profundis which issues from the sacrificed one: God is love."
- Soren Kierkegaard
- Walter Lowrie
"As a skillful cook says with regard to a dish in which already a great many ingredients are mingled, 'It needs just a little pinch of cinnamon' (and we perhaps could hardly tell by the taste that this little pinch of spice had entered into it, but the cook knew precisely why and precisely how it affected the taste of the whole mixture)... so it is with divine governance... A little pinch of spice! That is to say: Here a man must be sacrificed, he is needed to impart a particular taste to the rest... Humanly speaking, what a painful thing to be thus sacrificed, to be the little pinch of spice! But on the other hand God knows well the man whom He elects to employ in this way, and so He also knows how, in the inward understanding of it, to make it so blessed a thing for him to be sacrificed, that among the thousands of diverse voices which express, each in its own way, the same thing, his also will be heard, and perhaps especially his, which is truly de profundis, proclaiming: God is love. The birds on the branches, the lilies in the field, the deer in the forest, the fishes in the sea, countless hosts of happy men, exultantly proclaim: God is love. But underneath all these sopranos, supporting them as it were, as the bass part does, is audible the de profundis which issues from the sacrificed one: God is love."
- Soren Kierkegaard
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February 19, 2024Thank god I’m finally done with this book
December 31, 2021
The author has written much on Kierkegaard, and it shows. Within the life story of Kierkegaard he breaks down why he's including/excluding certain texts, which at times is insightful while other times distracting.
Overall though the book is a worthwhile read if you are interested in the life of Soren. It dives more into his works than his personal life story though than I would like, but I still felt the book was a worthwhile read.
Overall though the book is a worthwhile read if you are interested in the life of Soren. It dives more into his works than his personal life story though than I would like, but I still felt the book was a worthwhile read.
August 2, 2008
Tired of the pseudonyms? Want to know the life of the man without spending your own life trying to figure it out. Read this.
March 5, 2018
On the whole, a sympathetic, highly readable, and useful but also uneven biography of SK.
Every reader of Kierkegaard must come to the melancholy Dane for the sake of some particular attraction, and must, to interpret the authorship, find some particular point to make central and key to the rest. Each reader must regard readers who stake for themselves a different center the way that Kierkegaard's pseudonyms regard each other as illuminating, and yet fundamentally wrong. Thus, my judgment of Lowrie's book: it is valuable for learning about SK's background, particularly his relationship with his father, his situation with respect to various social circles, and his situation with respect to his contemporaries in Copenhagen, along with the development of his thought. I found it particularly helpful for tracing out his relationship with his father.
However, there is a significant flaw in Lowrie's "reading" of SK's life. The history he tells would work perfectly well if the relationship of SK and Regine were simply ignored; in Lowrie's telling, SK is essentially related to his father, and his history is essentially a dynamic interaction of his genius with the legacy of his father and the pressure of his contemporaries. Regine is relegated primarily to the chapter that bears her name, and the reader is not helped with any explanation of how it is that she made him a poet, or what that meant; and though we hear frequently of the dedications of his edifying discourses, which were dedicated to his father, there is a much more perfunctory treatment of his dedication of the whole authorship to Regine. Lowrie rather regards this love affair with a tolerant, but not quite comprehending, air, and does his duty by it but mostly as an example of the way poor SK's melancholy rendered his life so sad.
I rather suspected where things were going before Lowrie confirmed this with the way he closed out the book. Lowrie, you see, fell in love with SK the church-reformer; and as Lowrie himself identified with this role, that is perhaps forgiveable; but then, when it comes to the end of SK's life, he feels the need to identify SK's "last words." This is because he identifies him as an "intellectual tragic hero," and as SK has Johannes de silentio say in Fear and Trembling, while the active tragic hero has a last act, the intellectual tragic hero needs a last word, whereby he is to be understood. Lowrie then has to cast about in SK's journal to find something suitable and settles on two different set pieces that essentially would fit the SK mentioned above, as a genius who emerged from his father and then struggled against the pressure of society and attempted to correct its fatal course--at immense cost to himself.
Yet SK's great love was not for Copenhagen, or Denmark, or the Danish Church; it was not in relation to any of these that he found himself and defined himself or his mission, and none of these were what first brought him to grasp the difficulty of faith. It was in his relationship with Regine that he found out the depth of his melancholy, the poverty of his faith, and the way he might serve God as poet-philosopher. Moreover, SK did, in fact, take some care to ensure he would have a definitive last word: the last word was the will, in which he revealed that his entire authorship was dedicated to Regine, in which he gave her everything that was left, and in which he all but declared that his tragic love for her was the red thread that united all the broken fragments of his life. Lowrie can't end with this last word, because as he told SK's story, such a last word would be an absurdity and entirely out of place. If Lowrie were right, it would only emerge as a kind of comic self-misunderstanding on behalf of SK himself.
I think, though, we have to say that it is Lowrie who misunderstood SK. He is a gifted writer and he provides the reader with all the material of SK's life that is necessary to grasp its main contours and events. He even provides, I think, all the material one needs to grasp that he has left something out; for it is no mistake that SK's whole relationship with the public changes simultaneously with changes in his relationship with Regine, and that the moment he adopts direct communication instead of indirect communication as his primary method is the moment he finally feels he could be direct with Regine -- if only a relationship were still possible! No, the external material is here in Lowrie, but the reader cannot get the heart of SK's life or work from reading Lowrie. Just as Lowrie fails to mention that SK and Regine kept up quite frequent "accidental" meetings on their daily walks, quite strange, silent meetings, in which nothing was said and in which they barely acknowledged each other, so he leaves out the one thing that would allow the reader to tie together all the materials he has provided and to regard SK's life as one complete whole.
Every reader of Kierkegaard must come to the melancholy Dane for the sake of some particular attraction, and must, to interpret the authorship, find some particular point to make central and key to the rest. Each reader must regard readers who stake for themselves a different center the way that Kierkegaard's pseudonyms regard each other as illuminating, and yet fundamentally wrong. Thus, my judgment of Lowrie's book: it is valuable for learning about SK's background, particularly his relationship with his father, his situation with respect to various social circles, and his situation with respect to his contemporaries in Copenhagen, along with the development of his thought. I found it particularly helpful for tracing out his relationship with his father.
However, there is a significant flaw in Lowrie's "reading" of SK's life. The history he tells would work perfectly well if the relationship of SK and Regine were simply ignored; in Lowrie's telling, SK is essentially related to his father, and his history is essentially a dynamic interaction of his genius with the legacy of his father and the pressure of his contemporaries. Regine is relegated primarily to the chapter that bears her name, and the reader is not helped with any explanation of how it is that she made him a poet, or what that meant; and though we hear frequently of the dedications of his edifying discourses, which were dedicated to his father, there is a much more perfunctory treatment of his dedication of the whole authorship to Regine. Lowrie rather regards this love affair with a tolerant, but not quite comprehending, air, and does his duty by it but mostly as an example of the way poor SK's melancholy rendered his life so sad.
I rather suspected where things were going before Lowrie confirmed this with the way he closed out the book. Lowrie, you see, fell in love with SK the church-reformer; and as Lowrie himself identified with this role, that is perhaps forgiveable; but then, when it comes to the end of SK's life, he feels the need to identify SK's "last words." This is because he identifies him as an "intellectual tragic hero," and as SK has Johannes de silentio say in Fear and Trembling, while the active tragic hero has a last act, the intellectual tragic hero needs a last word, whereby he is to be understood. Lowrie then has to cast about in SK's journal to find something suitable and settles on two different set pieces that essentially would fit the SK mentioned above, as a genius who emerged from his father and then struggled against the pressure of society and attempted to correct its fatal course--at immense cost to himself.
Yet SK's great love was not for Copenhagen, or Denmark, or the Danish Church; it was not in relation to any of these that he found himself and defined himself or his mission, and none of these were what first brought him to grasp the difficulty of faith. It was in his relationship with Regine that he found out the depth of his melancholy, the poverty of his faith, and the way he might serve God as poet-philosopher. Moreover, SK did, in fact, take some care to ensure he would have a definitive last word: the last word was the will, in which he revealed that his entire authorship was dedicated to Regine, in which he gave her everything that was left, and in which he all but declared that his tragic love for her was the red thread that united all the broken fragments of his life. Lowrie can't end with this last word, because as he told SK's story, such a last word would be an absurdity and entirely out of place. If Lowrie were right, it would only emerge as a kind of comic self-misunderstanding on behalf of SK himself.
I think, though, we have to say that it is Lowrie who misunderstood SK. He is a gifted writer and he provides the reader with all the material of SK's life that is necessary to grasp its main contours and events. He even provides, I think, all the material one needs to grasp that he has left something out; for it is no mistake that SK's whole relationship with the public changes simultaneously with changes in his relationship with Regine, and that the moment he adopts direct communication instead of indirect communication as his primary method is the moment he finally feels he could be direct with Regine -- if only a relationship were still possible! No, the external material is here in Lowrie, but the reader cannot get the heart of SK's life or work from reading Lowrie. Just as Lowrie fails to mention that SK and Regine kept up quite frequent "accidental" meetings on their daily walks, quite strange, silent meetings, in which nothing was said and in which they barely acknowledged each other, so he leaves out the one thing that would allow the reader to tie together all the materials he has provided and to regard SK's life as one complete whole.
February 17, 2024
*Cross posting this review that I wrote for a recent rerelease of this biography from Princeton because people really need to be steered away from this biography to better introductions to Søren Kierkegaard's life*
Kierkegaard scholarship has come a long way since this biography written in the 1940s. Walter Lowrie engages in a ton of highly speculative sleuth work using the pseudonymous works Søren Kierkegaard wrote to spin out fantastical biographical theories. This, combined with the prissy reverence with which Lowrie approaches Kierkegaard, makes for a grating reading experience for anyone who has read almost any other biography on Denmark's most famous 19th century thinker.
Currently the gold standard in Kierkegaard biographies is Joakim Garff's mid 2000s doorstop, "Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography", but I understand that some people might find Garff's low estimate of Kierkegaard off putting. There are at least two really good short biographies of Kierkegaard that take a more positive (but not sycophantic) approach to his life: Clare Carlisle's "Philosopher of the Heart" and Stephen Backhouse's "Kierkegaard: A Single Life". Either one of these will give you a more up to date and nuanced popular introduction to an absolutely fascinating thinker. Lowrie's biography is purely of interest as a historical artifact of the early days of Anglo-American Kierkegaard scholarship.
Kierkegaard scholarship has come a long way since this biography written in the 1940s. Walter Lowrie engages in a ton of highly speculative sleuth work using the pseudonymous works Søren Kierkegaard wrote to spin out fantastical biographical theories. This, combined with the prissy reverence with which Lowrie approaches Kierkegaard, makes for a grating reading experience for anyone who has read almost any other biography on Denmark's most famous 19th century thinker.
Currently the gold standard in Kierkegaard biographies is Joakim Garff's mid 2000s doorstop, "Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography", but I understand that some people might find Garff's low estimate of Kierkegaard off putting. There are at least two really good short biographies of Kierkegaard that take a more positive (but not sycophantic) approach to his life: Clare Carlisle's "Philosopher of the Heart" and Stephen Backhouse's "Kierkegaard: A Single Life". Either one of these will give you a more up to date and nuanced popular introduction to an absolutely fascinating thinker. Lowrie's biography is purely of interest as a historical artifact of the early days of Anglo-American Kierkegaard scholarship.
July 19, 2023
This biography aligned the various pieces of Kierkegaard's writing that I have read. Lowrie's shortbiography (an abridgment of a MUCH longer version) explains the life circumstances which brought about the many genres–some sui generis-and many pseudonyms by which Kierkegaard wrote. Raised by a father who believed his family was cursed, Søren lived with an anxiety and earnestness which took on many forms throughout his life, and resulted in a copious body of literature all in conversation with itself. Lowrie does not shy away from the latent Christianity in Kierkegaard's life, nor is he content to let modern philosophy harmfully influence his assessment. Lowrie's treatment demonstrates a genuine care for his subject, something almost like a friendship across the century that divides them.
July 17, 2023
Usually when I read biographies, the author helps me along the way understanding the true person. I get a good idea of that person’s character, giving me a much better understanding of whoever I am interested in learning about. Well…. not the case in this one. I would think as a translator of Soren’s work, he would have been able to do an excellent job of this. I was wrong.
September 2, 2023
The problem isn't so much with the writing (it's actually written pretty well) as with the man himself - about a little more than halfway through one realizes how much of an immature brat Kierkegaard really was, and it is mildly incredible that writers and scholastics dedicated their whole lives to the study of him.
October 26, 2019
It would be helpful if you had read SK and had a basic understanding of his philosophy. I found it difficult to read without that basic understanding. But I DID learn some things about his "short" life.
April 21, 2020
Interesting read. Grasped the general overview of his life. I was able to retain 10% of the information. I probably would have retained more if I had more background knowledge of his works. In the end, I monkey brain, I no really understand, me fling poo.
March 31, 2025
Less a biography than a hagiography, this is a wonderful little introduction to Kierkegaard that makes you want to dive more deeply into his life and works.
I do look forward to reading some other biographical works alongside Kierkegaard’s own, just to get a different perspective of the man.
I do look forward to reading some other biographical works alongside Kierkegaard’s own, just to get a different perspective of the man.
May 13, 2021
Dreary. Lowrie suffers from a fatal inability to paraphrase which is all the more surprising given that, as I understand, he is (was) something of a Don in Kierkegaard scholarship.
May 14, 2011
As the title indicates, a short look at Kierkegaard's life; there is a bit too much quoting without commentary (or enough commentary), but this is not really an intellectual bio... Lowrie took up translating Kierkegaard late in life and has great affection for his subject:
"I would have it known that this is the Kierkegaard I love--not the dissolute and despairing youth,nor the returning prodigal, nor the unhappy lover, not the genius who created the pseudonyms,but the frail man utterly unfitted to cope with the world, who was nevertheless able to confront the real danger of penury as well as the vain terrors his imagination conjured up and in fear and trembling, fighting with fabulous monsters, ventured as a lone swimmer far out upon the deep, where no human hand could be stretched out to save him, and there, with 70,000 fathoms of water under him, for three years held out, waiting for his orders, and then said distinctly that definite thing he was bidden to say, and died with a hallelujah on his lips. I could not love him as I do unless I could venerate him,and I learned to venerate him only when I saw he had the courage to die as a witness for the truth."
Familiarity with basic Kierkegaardean ideas will greatly help this read...
"I would have it known that this is the Kierkegaard I love--not the dissolute and despairing youth,nor the returning prodigal, nor the unhappy lover, not the genius who created the pseudonyms,but the frail man utterly unfitted to cope with the world, who was nevertheless able to confront the real danger of penury as well as the vain terrors his imagination conjured up and in fear and trembling, fighting with fabulous monsters, ventured as a lone swimmer far out upon the deep, where no human hand could be stretched out to save him, and there, with 70,000 fathoms of water under him, for three years held out, waiting for his orders, and then said distinctly that definite thing he was bidden to say, and died with a hallelujah on his lips. I could not love him as I do unless I could venerate him,and I learned to venerate him only when I saw he had the courage to die as a witness for the truth."
Familiarity with basic Kierkegaardean ideas will greatly help this read...
September 21, 2010
It is a decent biography. But I found it hard to read because I was not too familiar with Kierkegaard's work, and not at all familiar with his contemporaries or what was happening in Denmark at the time. I thought those two things could have been made clearer for the unfamiliar reader.
February 9, 2013
Een verslag van het uitzonderlijke leven en het omvangrijke werk van Sören Kierkegaard. Niet heel toegankelijk geschreven (vertaald), met oude taal, maar wel volledig lijkt me, en mee daardoor interessant en door het bijzondere van dit alles.
February 10, 2016
A very enjoyable biography on Kierkegaard. Lowrie does a great job pulling from his various works, as well as the writings of a number of figures in his life, in order to construct a fuller picture of S.K.
September 22, 2016
Tedious. Couldn't finish.
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