''Writing Sampler'' was an unpublished work by the Danish philosopher

Søren Kierkegaard Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( , , ; 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on ...

. The pseudonymous author attached to the ''Sampler'' is ''A.B.C.D.E.F. Godthaab''. ''Sampler'' was intended to be a sequel to the ''

Prefaces ''Prefaces'' () is a book by Søren Kierkegaard published under the pseudonym Nicolaus Notabene. The meaning of the pseudonym used for ''Prefaces'', Nicholaus Notabene, was best summed up in his work '' Writing Sampler'', where Kierkegaard said tw ...

'' which was published in 1844. It was translated and published posthumously in English in 1997.Kierkegaard, Søren. ''Prefaces/Writing Sampler'', Princeton University Press, 1997, ''Writing Sampler'' was intended to emphasize the

ironic Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique. Irony can be categorized into ...

and

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

elements of the ''Prefaces''. It is also a historical social commentary of life in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

in the 1840s, and it references people and events of note at the time. In particular, it focuses on the relationship between the esthetic and religious stages of life.

References

1997 books Books by Søren Kierkegaard {{Europe-hist-book-stub