Achim von Arnim: Kierkegaard’s Encounters with a Heidelberg Hermit

Although Kierkegaard possessed a number of Arnim’s works and referred to Arnim in his writings, no scholarly study of Kierkegaard’s reception of Arnim exists. In the Kierkegaard literature, only Walter Rehm devotes any serious attention to Arnim.1 In Arnim studies, Kierkegaard is mentioned by Gerhard Rudolph2 and in Paul Michael Lützeler’s edition of Arnim’s novel Armuth, Reichtum, Schuld und Buße der Gräfin Dolores (1810).3 Like Lützeler, Rehm and Rudolph focus on Kierkegaard’s reception of Dolores. Rudolph also refers to Arnim’s novella Isabella von Ägypten, Kaiser Karl des �ünften erste Jugendliebe (1812).