Method, Style, and Purpose

Method, Style, and Purpose

We've really run the gamut this Seminar in terms of genre. We had the novel (and more) with War & Peace, poetry with Lao Tzu, epic poetry with the Gita, fragments with Buddha, and dense nonfiction with Hegel. Finally, we have in Kierkegaard the old PLS staple of enjoyable nonfiction.

In the first chapter, Kierkegaard coaxes Christianity out of Socrates, somehow. He really does coax it: cf. pg. 16, when we get the first example of this method of his. He describes something-- untruth-- and slowly brings it around to something of which he can say: "Let us call it sin." He uses this same methodology with words like "deliverer," "savior," "procreative." He is no hurry (cf. p. 20); the points he wants to make emerge from his arguments gently.

His use of the word "poetry" is interesting to describe what he is doing here. He uses stories, e.g. the child's toy, the knight (p. 16), and of course the King (p. 27). To deal with this discrepancy I was reminded of Plato's rejection of meter and his subsequent rendering of the first part of the Iliad (in the Republic). Kierkegaard might be unclear at times, but he never fails to be frank: he provides stories, dialogue, simile, and in general a calm tone to communicate his purpose. If it's poetry, it's not false poetry (cf. p. 34, middle paragraph).

What can we take from Kierkegaard's tone and use of literary devices? Specifically, how do these resonate with the content of what he's saying? With the purpose he lays out for himself?