Citation:
Date Published:
8 June 2023Abstract:
This article is grounded in ideas about defining commitment and the development of self that stem from the writings by Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard’s view that the self develops in relation to three existential stages or “realms” — the esthetic, the ethical, and the religious sheds light on Nicole Krauss’s novels The History of Love (2005) and Forest Dark (2017). Leo Gursky in the former shares the commitment to romantic love of the young swain in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling; but for Krauss’s character this commitment is displaced in favor of a commitment to writing itself. In Forest Dark the notion of writing as defining commitment reemerges through the character Nicole. A transition from the esthetic to the ethical dimension occurs in Jules Epstein’s newfound commitment to the dead. Ultimately, however, Krauss’s characters in these two novels are characterized as lacking the “inwardness” that in Kierkegaard’s writings is necessary for becoming a self that is able to access the religious realm.
March 2023: Nicholas O. Pagan is a visiting professor of English at the University of Malaya. He specializes in literary theory and writes about literature (particularly American literature) in relation to philosophy, mind, and spirituality. His publications include Theory of Mind and Science Fiction (2014). He has also published in journals including Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal; Religion & Literature; Literature and Theology, Journal of Language, Literature, and Culture; and Interdisciplinary Literary Studies: A Journal of Criticism and Theory.