"Stages on Life's Way," the sequel to "Either/Or," is an
intensely poetic example of Kierkegaard's vision of the three
stages, or spheres, of existence: the esthetic, the ethical, and
the religious. With characteristic love for mystification, he
presents the work as a bundle of documents fallen by chance into
the hands of "Hilarius Bookbinder," who prepared them for printing.
The book begins with a banquet scene patterned on Plato's
Symposium. (George Brandes maintained that "one must recognize with
amazement that it holds its own in this comparison.") Next is a
discourse by "Judge William" in praise of marriage "in answer to
objections." The remainder of the volume, almost two-thirds of the
whole, is the diary of a young man, discovered by "Frater
Taciturnus," who was deeply in love but felt compelled to break his
engagement. The work closes with a letter to the reader from
Taciturnus on the three "existence-spheres" represented by the
three parts of the book.
"Stages on Life's Way" not only repeats themes, characters, and
pseudonymous authors of the earlier works but also goes beyond them
and points to further development of central ideas in "Concluding
Unscientific Postscript."
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