"In the vast literature of love, The Seducer''s Diary is an intricate curiosity--a feverishly intellectual attempt to reconstruct an erotic failure as a pedagogic success, a wound masked as a boast," observes John Updike in his foreword to S-ren Kierkegaard''s narrative. This work, a chapter from Kierkegaard''s first major volume, Either/Or, springs from his relationship with his fianc- Regine Olsen. Kierkegaard fell in love with the young woman, ten years his junior, proposed to her, but then broke off their engagement a year later. This event affected Kierkegaard profoundly. Olsen became a muse for him, and a flood of volumes resulted. His attempt to set right, in writing, what he feels was a mistake in his relationship with Olsen taught him the secret of "indirect communication." The Seducer''s Diary, then, becomes Kierkegaard''s attempt to portray himself as a scoundrel and thus make their break easier for her.
Matters of marriage, the ethical ve
