Groping His Way Back

This chapter deals with the two-year period of Kierkegaard's grappling with his own despair, which lasted from May 1836 to 1838. Kierkegaard had held a desolate impression of these two years, in which he intimated that the “powerful religious impression of my childhood acquired a renewed power over [him]” after the death of his father, only now it was “softened by reflection.” Thus, in a sense these two years were a continuation of the events of the previous chapter, in which Kierkegaard was still on the “path to perdition.” This time, however, the chapter looks at how Kierkegaard spent these two years retracing it. This chapter also chronicles Kierkegaard's further engagements with philosophy during his time at the University.