Re-reading the Religious – Aesthetically: A Literary Analysis of “The Woman Who Was a Sinner” and The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air

What is it about?

Although Kierkegaard is known to express himself extraordinarily eloquently, at first glance this doesn’t seem to apply to his decidedly religious writings, which appear rather monotonous in many cases. This impression might lead to a one-sided interpretation of the significance of aesthetic devices and aesthetic approaches in Kierkegaard’s works. However, close literary readings of his religious writings reveal to which extent the religious texts are not only committed to ‘the aesthetic’ by applying, integrating and contradicting it—but that they even depend on it with regard to their own functioning.

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