ABSTRACT

Were one to ask about Bernhard’s connection to Kierkegaard, the difficulty of constructing such a connection would become apparent immediately. After all, one is dealing with a writer who never explained his position on Kierkegaard explicitly or in any detail. There is only slight direct reference to Kierkegaard and his work.2 Furthermore, he does not approach Kierkegaard in a matter-of-fact way but ratheras is typical for Bernhard-wreaking with irony. In Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh’, for instance, Kierkegaard is given the title of “the Liszt amongst philosophers” and further described as a “thorough wrestler of the north.”3 And finally, there is his hero in Auslöschung, Franz-Josef Murau, who contemplates on the day before his parent’s funeral whether to read The Sickness unto Death “in order to while away the time.”4 Yet, despite it also being a stylistic feature to treat Kierkegaard in such a polemical way, the terminology and thought processes clearly point towards Kierkegaard. It is particularly in the novel Auslöschung, in which the hero seeks relaxation in the perusal of The Sickness unto Death, that the concept of the “mortal illness” arisesin close connection with the terms of “interest” and “passion,” which are two concepts of fundamental importance to Kierkegaard.5 The present article will follow and explore such terminological analogies, which are supported by similar thought processes.6 Principally, the focus will lie on one topic both authors have in common: the salvation of a radically jeopardized existence.