The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard

Edited and with an introduction by W.H. Auden

Translated from the Danish by Walter Lowrie, David Swenson, and Alexander Dru

The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard is one of the master thinkers of the modern age, a defining influence on existentialism and on twentieth-century theology, and this brilliantly tailored selection from his vast and varied writings—made by the great English poet W.H Auden—is a perfect introduction to his work. Auden's inspired and incisive response to a thinker who had done much to shape his own beliefs is a fundamental reading of an author whose spirit remains as radical as ever more than 150 years after he wrote.

Read the introduction (PDF)

Reviews

Auden accepted many assignments in his industrious life and always made something creative of them. The Living Thoughts of Soren Kierkegaard is more than an anthology, it is a bold reshaping of the Dane's oeuvre and the handiest introduction to him as a Christian apologist. Auden's compressed and jauntily dogmatic introduction is itself an education.
— John Updike

Also see:

W.H. Auden's Book of Light Verse Preface by Edward Mendelson Edited by W.H. Auden Auden's great, transformative anthology, assembled when his own work was at its most provocative and searching, is above all a rethinking of the history of poetry in English.

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