Although having been eclipsed by the now notoriously famous Concept of Anxiety, Prefaces was in fact more popular when it appeared and sold many more copies.

Written under the pseudonym of Nicolaus Notabene, the “author” name indicates that despite its humorous approach, Prefaces is still something serious – something to be noted. And it certainly is. It is here that we find Kierkegaard’s sarcastic roasting of the Hegelian system and of the Danish Hegelians with Johan Ludvig Heiberg as the main representant. Through Notabene, he makes fun of Heiberg and Hegel, who both want to explain everything and want to be mediators of understanding. 

Just as Hafniensis in The Concept on Anxiety poses that “how sin came into the world each man understands solely by himself. If he would learn it from another, he would misunderstand it” (p. 51), so Notabene in Prefaces states that “My frame, my health, my entire constitution do not lend themselves to mediation” (p. 45).

In Prefaces we also find Kierkegaard’s thoughts about the relationship between the reading public and the author and his fierce criticism of literary critics and reviewers. And in the very amusing preface to the Prefaces, we are given another glimpse into Kierkegaard’s thoughts on marriage and the dilemma he found himself in with Regine – the inner struggle between he, who is the husband and he, who is the author; can one be both?

With its challenging notions on the idea of the book and the interaction of the book with its readers, his little ironic masterpiece is a clear forerunner of Postmodernism

Himmelstrup 7.