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Abstract
One of the central challenges facing every modern subject-the difficulty of negotiating the tension between freedom and necessity-comes powerfully into view in Kierkegaard’s figure of the aesthete. In this paper, I focus on this tension as it is expressed in the aesthete’s experience of boredom, and I argue that his demonic reaction is best viewed as an attempt to bring about the divorce of freedom from the immediate embedded context, or spirit from factical reality. I investigate the origin of demonic boredom, its meaning, and the various ways to master it by examining aesthete A’s reflections in Either/Or as well as Vigilius Haufniensis’ discussion of the demonic in The Concept of Anxiety.
Published Online: 2013-10-24
Published in Print: 2013-10
© 2013 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.
