Søren Kierkegaard’s language: Semantic fields of metaphors and similes in The Sickness unto Death

Abstract

This article presents a classification of those artistic devices that the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard uses in his work The Sickness unto Death. We will talk about such figures of speech as metaphor and simile. This classification arose as a result of the translation and analysis of the treatise since its careful study showed that these stylistic devices are not single and random means of expression designed to decorate or diversify the text, but an integral part of Kierkegaard’s philosophical thinking, which is characterized by figurativeness and concreteness. Kierkegaard blames modern philosophers for abstract thinking divorced from reality, and to present his ideas he chooses a figurative language replete with concrete comparisons since he sees it as his task to consider the real problems of human life. This classification is based on the division of artistic devices not according to their type, but according to their semantics. Each group of devices is a “semantic field” from which Kierkegaard drew metaphors and comparisons for a more precise and at the same time more figurative description of his views. The article considers the nine most common semantic fields, while in The Sickness unto Death, there are more than twenty of them. Since metaphors and comparisons are an integral part of Kierkegaard’s text, a careful study of them is very important both for philosophers who want to penetrate deeper into the concept of the Danish thinker, and for translators who seek to convey the author’s original text as accurately as possible. Thus, the main task of the presented classification is to approach the understanding of the concept of “despair” through those figurative characteristics that Kierkegaard endows them with.