The Faust Project in Kierkegaard’s Early Journals

Abstract This article offers a detailed and compact account of what might be called Kierkegaard’s Faust project, that is, the collection of notes, bibliographies and reflections on the mythical German necromancer that the young Kierkegaard registered in his various journals and notebooks from the years 1835 – 1837. As is well known, the young writer presumably intended to pen a book or essay about the universal idea represented by Faust. Additionally, I discuss Kierkegaard’s project within the context of the 1830s, the reception of the Faustian myth among his Danish contemporaries such as J.L. Heiberg and H.L. Martensen, and the enthusiasm for Goethe that seized Copenhagen during those years.