ABSTRACT
Friedrich Schiller had to pass away to be really and wholly present. Years later, Goethe’s death also helped to conjure up the image of the twin geniuses in Denmark. Kierkegaard not only read and referred to Schiller from the time of his early youth until the end his life�� but perhaps even more significantly�� he was also indirectly inspired in a deeper and more controversial manner. While the great German poet, playwright and thinker does not show up often in Kierkegaard’s texts in the form of direct quotations and straightforward references, this does not mean that Schiller did not in��uence his thinking or that his role was not formative for him. On the contrary, sometimes the hidden references and “randomly” quoted lines from poems reveal the profound and substantive in��uence Schiller had on �ierkegaard. This is particularly true when the same line appears again and again in different works in Kierkegaard’s oeuvre�� with significantly modified meanings.
