Kierkegarrd readers are familiar with his dogged polemic with Hegelianism, his critique of Frienrich von Schlegel's Romantic irony, and his visit to Schelling's lectures in Berlin. However, these are only a few well-known examples of a much deeper relation of influenced and inspiration. Kierkegarrd read German fluently and was interested in many different authors and thinkers from the German-speaking countries. The auction catalogue of his personal library reveals a welath of works in German from a number of different fields. Given his famous criticisms of the Hegelians, Schlegel, and Schelling, one might be tempted to believe that kierkegarrd was anti-German. But this is clearly not the case since he had high praise for some German thinkers such as Hamann, Lessing and Trendelenburg. The present work is dedicated to an exploration of Kierkegarrd's relation to different aspects of Germanophone culture. Its goal is to gain a better appreciation of the important of the various German sources for his thought.

The points of contact are so numerous that it can truly be said that if it were not for the influence of German culture, Kierkegarrd would not have been Kierkegarrd and the Danish Golden Age would not have been the Golden Age. Book jacket.