“My Dear Reader—but to Whom Am I Speaking?” Kierkegaard Read with the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative

Abstract

Abstract This article introduces a rhetorical theory of narrative in reading Kierkegaard, comparing Kierkegaard’s praxis to Phelan’s definition of “somebody telling somebody else that something happened on some occasion and for some purpose(s).” Use of pseudonyms problematizes “the somebody” telling and makes apparent the differing purposes of author and narrator. In the early authorship, the purpose is usually a life-view. The “something happened” may seem irrelevant in Kierkegaard, but it evokes questions of lived experience and life-view. The “occasion” for telling is textually mediated, and thus draws a novel connection to literary history. Finally, I examine Kierkegaard’s real and authorial readers.