'The Art in All Communication.' Kierkegaard's View on Essential Authorship and Essential Knowlegde

Although Kierkegaard did not consider the book reviews he wrote to be a part of what he called his 'whole authorship', his activities as a critic nevertheless proof to have intrinsic value. Especially in his pseudonymous and unpublished review The Book on Adler (1872) he developed a view on authorship that does not only underlie From the Papers of One Still Living (1838) and Two Ages (1845), but that is also connected with crucial themes in the authorship as such. In this paper I intend to examine the criterion Petrus Minor expressed for (genuine) communication between author and reader. That his criterion is closely connected to the theme of subjectivity and 'essential knowing' as we find it in Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1845) proves that there is a strong link between the development of an authorship and the existential maturity of the author himself. Confronting Kierkegaard's early criticism of Andersen with this criterion provides the booklet with more clarity and reveals its importance for a proper understanding of later and crucial themes in his authorship.