ABSTRACT
Kierkegaard's view of Socrates illustrates irony's status as both truth and untruth. For Kierkegaard, "personality is only fully achievable if one can regain a meaningful relationship to the very world which the ironist sees as hollow." There are two reasons to appreciate K. Brian Soderquist's The Isolated Self: Truth and Untruth in Soren Kierkegaard's "On the Concept of Irony." First and foremost, Soderquist's study provides a thorough-going interpretation of Kierkegaard's dissertation, a work whose semi-canonical status has tended to discourage sustained critical engagement. Secondly, Soderquist's study is the first volume in the Soren Kierkegaard Research Centre's Danish Golden Age Studies series, a series that has focused renewed interest on the social, cultural, and literary milieu out of which Kierkegaard's texts emerged. Having discussed Kierkegaard's critique of Romantic irony, Soderquist then situates Kierkegaard's dissertation in relation to the contemporary Danish discussion of irony and humor.
