The Secret Gloss

"After my death, no one will find amongst my papers a single explanation as to what really filled my life (that is my consolation). No one will find the words which explain everything, and which often made what the world would call a bagatelle into an event of tremendous importance to me, and what I look upon as something insignificant when I take away the secret gloss which explains all." - Soren Kierkegaard, Journals, 1842.Written as a script for a film or play, using the dramatic devices of flashback and surreal episodes, Augustus Young has written a highly original discourse on the life and ideas of one of the world's greatest thinkers. Perhaps only Freud has had more influence on the twentieth century's intellectual Weltgeist. Kierkegaard's writings crossed the divide between the ecclesiastic and the secular. His work provides the common ground between existential angst and religious belief. In a short but flamboyant life, the Danish theologian logged his experience into writings whose frankness anticipated and decisively influenced many of the twentieth century's greatest artists and philosophers. "The Secret Gloss" perfectly captures both the tragic and comic aspects of the man, whose life was considered merely eccentric in his own time and whose reputation would not be properly re-considered until many years after his death.