Kierkegaard's Pseudonymous Works

During the last class we discussed the fact that Kierkegaard wrote most of his works under varying pseudonyms. I found this very interesting and in looking into some of his other works I found that he wrote a piece, which was published posthumously, called The Point of VIew where he explained his use of pseudonyms in his writings. In this text he discusses how he does not take ownership for any of the words written by his pseudonyms quite clearly divorcing himself from his pseudonymous works. I found this quite interesting because he actively disowns his own writing as if to preempt any negative backlash for his ideas. With this in mind are we as readers supposed to accept Kierkegaard’s writings as belonging to him or to their corresponding “authors” and what does it say of Kierkegaard’s philosophy if he himself is unwilling to take ownership of it? Is it that he was afraid of backlash for ideas or was it a built in death of the author so that each individual text would be read without taking into consideration the aspects of Kierkegaard’s life. I feel that Kierkegaard was most likely trying to create a piece of text that would be read without delving into its point of origin; in other words he was trying to create self-contained arguments that were meant to be interpreted based on what they actually contained and removed from extra-textual information. If this is so Kierkegaard could be seen as a sort of self-aware post-structuralist in that he was forcing readers to set aside any intent the author may have had and focus on the meaning that was perceived in the reading. This makes Kierkegaard, as Dr. J said, a very literary writer. His “philosophy” is wide open to varying interpretations from readers; as none of his pieces were meant to be seen as elements of a body of work but rather as individual pieces that were unrelated.