The Diarist in Stages on Life's Way

Kierkegaard's Stages on Life's Way belongs to what by 1845 can be understood as the romantic tradition, itself containing members related by both blood and adoption to those in the Christian tradition. By far the greatest portion of this Element is devoted to the portrait of an ethically enervated, anonymous troubadour turned troglodyte whose peculiar diary is accidentally found locked in a box with the key inside at the bottom of a pond. To bring up and out what animates this central character, the initial portions of stages on the despairing ambivalence of a group of tipsy bachelors and the pedantic moralizing of an anonymous husband unfold the interpersonal ideals at play in pursuit of a meaningful life all told. Following suit, the diary recounts a troubled love affair, which is, as Kierkegaard says elsewhere, 'always a usable theme in relation to what it means to exist.'