Following his “brisk, readable, accurate” (Gregory R. Beabout) translations of Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death, Bruce H. Kirmmse presents a new translation of Kierkegaard’s discourses on love.
First published in 1847, Works of Love is among Søren Kierkegaard’s most explicitly religious works. Intended to awaken rather than convince—to replicate “the stinging, impatient character of a ‘gadfly, ’” as translator Bruce H. Kirmmse writes—the book consists of a series of fifteen deliberations on love. Contrasting romantic love and love for one’s friends with the selfless Christian love—agape—of the New Testament, Works of Love contends that the only way to purge self-interest from love is to love one’s neighbor, who is “indeed unconditionally every person.” Though always careful to distinguish his “deliberations” from clerical “sermons, ” Kierkegaard insisted that in order to grasp the full meaning of the work, one must hear it. Whereas other translations have obscured or disregarded the rhetorical aspect of the text, Kirmmse’s translation preserves it—thus making the same request of its readers that Kierkegaard once made of his: to hear the argument by reading it aloud.
About the author
A professor emeritus at Connecticut College, Bruce H. Kirmmse has published several books and numerous articles on Kierkegaard and is general editor of Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks. He lives in Randolph, New Hampshire, and Copenhagen, Denmark.
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