Nathan Meyer April 13, 2011 .ce 2 Paradox and Poeticism in Kierkegaard: An Afterword to the Epilogue of Fear and Trembling .PP In a room sits a student, thinking, attempting to come to terms with the cryptic parable posed by his teacher. The student is told that it is in fact impossible to write on the topic of the parable without total irony, yet the student is compelled to complete the assignment, to contribute analysis on that which denies intellectual understanding. .PP For both the teacher and the student, to achieve a true human education is the fundamental riddle of existence. Yet, somehow it seems that for each, their individual transcendence is within each of them in the passion of their seeking spirit, soaring beyond the bounds of their intellectual struggle, into the eternal. .PP In the final paragraph of his epilogue to Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard invokes Heraclitus' famous parable that s "one cannot pass twice through the same river(132) and his student who claims "one cannot do it even once". It is certainly fitting for Kierkegaard, who writes in riddles, to end his afterword thus, and we must be aware of the humorous self-comparison Kierkegaard seems to draw with his ancient influence, Heraclitus "the obscure". .PP In its most basic historical-philosophical context, Kierkegaard presents this ironic conclusion as a satire of Hegelian conceptions of historical teleology. In contradiction to the Young Hegelians' obsession to "go further" and beyond faith, Kierkegaard believes that faith is the highest passion in man(130). In addition, the absurdity and impossible difficulty of coming to terms with paradox, seems here to represent the enormous difficulty and absurdity of the leap of faith. Kierkegaard recognizes the human instinct to search for truth through analysis, to reduce to structures, systems, and sciences. Kierkegaard's paradox asks us to be fulfilled through passion alone, to sacrifice understanding before the unknowable. The 'river' paradox, this ultimate Kierkegaardian "koan", is both the last of many in his cryptic text, and the first of a line of potentially infinite reinterpretations. .PP We find irony in both Kierkegaard's task and the task of the student who finds it the focus of their contemplation. Kierkegaard seems to present us with a critique of critique (as a tool of advancement), finding fault with the belief in the continual human progress of generations. Instead, "every generation begins all over again"(130). How is Kierkegaard's undeniably intellectual project immune from its own critique? The irony is perhaps even greater for the student who must respond to Kierkegaard's philosophy. To contemplate, let alone to write about Kierkegaard's paradox is clearly to fall into the condemned realm of academic criticism. .PP But what is the realm transcending the academic, the "genuinely human" that Kierkegaard claims we can only learn through experience? For Kierkegaard it is the self-defining experiences of passion and faith on the part of the individual. An obsession with subjectivity and a repulsion of the formality of intellectual superstructure seems to characterize his relation to religion. Faith is the culmination of man's passionate response to the unknowable. The haunting paradox of the Mount Moriah episode cannot be intellectually understood, as it opposes all rational conceptions of law and morality. Yet, it can be deeply felt in one's personal re-experience of the story, in how it is personally reconsidered and retold. .PP There is clearly a paradox in attempting to find a moral for a parable meant to show us that there can be no lesson learned from a teacher, or a previous generation. To posit that there is a key would contradict the notion that all acts of positing are merely constitutive of meaningless chatter. Yet, the ironic absurdity of the parable is precisely what enables it to point to that which is meaningful, to faith. For Kierkegaard, we cannot transcend faith, and faith itself is derived from the subjective experience and expression of passion. Perhaps, therefore, if there is any key to Kierkegaard's final cryptic paradox, it is found through an understanding of Kierkegaard's poeticiscm. .PP Although Kierkegaard claims to be neither a poet nor a philosopher, poetry would seem to be perfectly representative as a medium not in conflict with his opposition of an intellectual pursuit of understanding. And in fact, the non-structured, improvisational freedom of verse seems to embody a stepping backward from the pursuit of 'going further' inherent in critique. Kierkegaard presents "the river" through his poetic voice--stylized, paradoxical, ironical--and in doing so, eliminates the river itself. .PP Ironically, we will attempt to reach a clearer understanding of Kierkegaardian inwardness not only through poetry, but through that of his disciple, Rainer Maria Rilke. It seems that, in contrast to the limitations of prose (despite Kierkegaard's undeniable lyricism), Rilke's verse achieves an unprecedented freedom of expression through its passionate formlessness. In Der Panther we recognize the inevitable Stäbe of our existence those bars that inhibit our pursuit of objectivity. We pace endlessly in the cage of logic, but find nothing. When we experience the passion of faith, it is a flicker of the eternal, not in our minds, but in the deepest recesses of our being. .nf Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe so müd geworden, dss? er nichts mehr hält. Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt. Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte, der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht, ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte, in der betäubt ein grss?er Wille steht Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille sich lautlos auf. - Dann geht ein Bild hinein, geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille - und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.