ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues, one must actualize the Christian possibility of self, one only available because of divine action, within one's embodied, existing form. It discusses artistic styles such as satire, story-telling, and pseudonymity. The book explains that Christ has an aesthetic dimension. Christ makes his appearance in the middle of actuality, teaches, suffers and says: Imitate me; imitation is Christianity. The human imagination and passion are both aesthetic elements that provide further support for the importance of narrative, as an aesthetic genre, within human existence. Kierkegaard's account of the art of subjectivity provides a way to critique the role that the aesthetic plays today. Grounding his idea of selfhood in a Christian idea of subjectivity, he wrote to correct views that emphasized the necessity of art in understanding the nature of selfhood.
