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Lis Lind has written a brief but interesting and penetrating essay on Søren Kierkegaard, the notable thinker, writer and philosopher of the 19th century. Lind has used Kierkegaard's diaries and posthumous papers as her sources. The collection of diaries is titled “Papirer”. It was published posthumously, and it includes other writings than actual diary notes. The diaries are not diaries in the traditional sense, since Kierkegaard wrote them on purpose, for posterity to read, considering carefully what to reveal and what to and what to keep secret. In the introduction of the book, Lind states that she has clearly defined her manner of reading as a psychoanalytical approach, i.e., focusing on manifestations of the unconscious, and exploring texts only to the extent to which they tell something about Kierkegaard as a person. Lind explains how, after having found the diaries as if by a whim of fate, she felt that she had received a personal mission. She experienced “how the bloodhound in the psychoanalyst arose, and started, instead of taking the writer's words for granted, to look for fixed points formed by the unconscious tendencies and conflicts which become apparent in the writings as recurrent patterns”.
Kierkegaard is a real challenge for the psychoanalyst, because he wanted to keep his personal secret, and intended, even in his diaries, to strictly influence the way posterity should understand him. Kierkegaard's conscious and publickly expressed goal was to let his personality fade in his writings. He believed that his thoughts would be better understood if the fantasies about his personality did not disturb the reader. Or, as he put it: “My picture of perfect likeness, etc., could, like the question of my using a hat or a peaked cap, arouse interest only in those to whom nonsense has become meaningful – perhaps as a compensation for the fact that important things have become insignificant.”
Lind accepted the challenge and began to trace how someone who tries to hi