How Kierkegaard’s ‘The Seducer’s Diary’ Became a Game Changer in My Relationships

Dear Reader,

I’ve read all the classics and tons of modern fiction about romance, which is probably why I have such high expectations for love.

I got The Seducer’s Diary as a birthday present when I turned 17, and that’s when my literary love affair with the Danish author and philosopher Kierkegaard really took hold. No story has touched me quite like this poetic novel about Johannes and Cordelia, the famous literary couple that never got to live happily ever after.

The Seducer’s Bow of Love

One day when Johannes strolls in Copenhagen, he sees a beautiful young girl, Cordelia, get out of a carriage. He immediately does everything possible to pursue her. It doesn’t matter who she is or where she comes from; she becomes Johannes’ next target.

"The trick is to be as receptive in regard to impressions as possible, to know the impression you are making and the impression, each girl makes on you. In this way you can even be in love with many at the same time, because with each particular girl you are differently in love. Loving just one is too little; loving all is being superficial: knowing yourself and loving as many as possible, letting your soul hide all the powers of love in itself, so that each gets its particular nourishment while consciousness embraces it all — that is enjoyment that is living."

– Kierkegaard: Either/Or (1843), The Seducer’s Diary

However, the interesting thing for Johannes is not the seduction itself, but the fantasy of the woman and the process of devising the perfect plan for seducing her both emotionally and physically.

Johannes uses his diary to track his actions, reflections, and strategic planning for his seduction experiment. He manipulates Cordelia into starting a relationship, and even persuades her into saying yes to an engagement by writing her love letters and introducing her to literature he carefully has selected to manipulate and influence her in the direction he wants. He even uses war metaphors in his description of his seduction of Cordelia.

"I tense the bow of love to wound the deeper. Like an archer, I slacken the bowstring, tighten it again, listen to its song — it is my martial music — but I do not take aim it yet, do not even lay the arrow on the string."

– Kierkegaard: Either/Or (1843), The Seducer’s Diary

With words and actions, Johannes makes Cordelia believe that what they have together is genuine love.

Johannes and Cordelia spend a night together, but the next day Johannes wants nothing to do with her. The moment she gives into his seduction, she is no longer a mystery or a challenge to Johannes, and he loses interest in her. The real victory for Johannes is not his relationship with Cordelia, but the calculated preparation leading up to their night together, and that his plan ultimately succeeds. Johannes’ hunt is over. He will repeat this pattern, moving on to another girl, and another, and another, until he finds himself in despair and realizes his life is meaningless.

Lessons in Love

Though Johannes is a fascinating character and reminds me of my first love, he is not the only reason I read The Seducer’s Diary repeatedly. I like this story because of Kierkegaard’s poetic writing, obviously, and as a young girl I could relate to Cordelia’s experiences, because my younger self knew how painful it could be to fall in love with someone or be friends with someone I naively thought I could trust. Still, they let me down in one way or another, and it was too painful to forgive them, much like Cordelia writes in a letter to Johannes:

“I do not call you’ mine’, I realize very well you have never been, and I am punished enough by this thought having once gladdened my soul; and yet I do call you ‘mine’: my seducer, my deceiver, my foe, my murderer, source of my unhappiness, grave of my joy, abyss of my ruin. I call you ‘mine’ and I call myself ‘yours’; and as it once flattered your ear, which proudly bent down to my adoration, so shall it now sound like a curse upon you, a curse to all eternity. ”

– Kierkegaard: Either/Or (1843), The Seducer’s Diary

Reading The Seducer’s Diary is like time traveling. I recall the young girl I used to be and how I felt the very first time I read it, but at the same time, I also read it from a more mature perspective. Today the love story of Cordelia and Johannes reminds me of what I want in a relationship with friends and a life partner. I like to feel the butterflies of excitement, and I want to be in a relationship that inspires me to write beautiful poems about. However, and more importantly, because of The Seducer’s Diary, I know I want what Johannes can’t give Cordelia, a loving commitment, and a feeling of being with the man I’m meant to be with, emotionally, physically, and spiritually in this lifetime and the next.

I’m also taking my friendships seriously: are we kind to each other and treating each other respectfully? If not, the friendship must end. Life is short, and being unkind or playing with other peoples’ feelings like Johannes does simply isn’t right.

Sometimes you need to face what you don’t want to know what you do want. Fiction and philosophy reflect who I am and who I want to be, and there’s no better teacher to me than Kierkegaard’s existential philosophy and work.

Who inspires you?

Takeaways

If you want to read something of Kierkegaard’s work but don’t know where to begin, I would recommend The Seducer’s Diary. It’s easier to read than some of his later writing because this story has a clear storyline, and the sentences are not complicated to understand.

The story goes that The Seducer’s Diary is inspired by Kierkegaard’s engagement to Regine Olsen. People in Copenhagen accused Kierkegaard of manipulating Regine by letting her believe through conversations and letters that they had a future together. Rumor has it that Kierkegaard took advantage of Regine’s innocence and love only to get inspiration and material to write “The Seducer’s Diary.” The only person who could refute these rumors is Kierkegaard himself. Still, it is a fact that after he broke off his engagement in October of 1841, he went to Berlin and wrote, in my opinion, some of his best work: Either/Or, his 600+ page masterpiece which The Seducer’s Diary is a part of. (The love story has also been published separately.)

Note: This piece represents the writer’s approach to Kierkegaard’s work. Other experts have different experiences, and that’s how it should be. The beauty is that Kierkegaard wanted his readers to get an individual experience with his stories and characters.

This essay was originally published on Medium