ABSTRACT
As professor of literature Johan de Mylius writes, any article on the connection between the famous Danish author of fairy tales Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75), and the almost as famous Danish philosopher Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-55), can be quite brief.1 Had it not been for Kierkegaard’s vitriolic attack on Andersen’s novel Only a Fiddler (1837),2 scholars would not have devoted so much time and ink to their relationship. While it is true that Kierkegaard and Andersen lived nearly next door to each other in Copenhagen, evidence of their interest in each other’s person or work is almost non-existent. It is therefore a source of wonder to scholars that Kierkegaard chooses to flay Andersen in 1838 in his book-length review From the Papers of One Still Living.3
