Hans Halvorson Physics, Logic, Philosophy

Kierkegaard's Copenhagen

A walking tour of sites significant to Søren Kierkegaard’s life and thought. Click a marker to learn about each location. The tour ends at his grave in Assistens Kirkegård.

Further reading

  • Peter Tudvad, Kierkegaards København (Politikens Forlag, 2004; reissued Rosinante & Co, 2013). The essential reference: a richly illustrated account of Kierkegaard’s life as a Copenhagener, drawing on extensive archival research.
  • George Pattison, “Kierkegaard and Copenhagen,” in John Lippitt and George Pattison (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard (Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 44–61. A scholarly essay on the city as the inescapable context for Kierkegaard’s authorship.
  • Kim Leck Fischer, I Søren Kierkegaards Fodspor (Søren Kierkegaard Fonden, 1996). Traces Kierkegaard’s relationship to the natural landscapes of North Zealand – Gilleleje and the surrounding coast – rather than Copenhagen itself.
  • Joakim Garff, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard: A Biography, trans. Bruce H. Kirmmse (Princeton University Press, 2005). The standard modern biography – exhaustive in its attention to the Copenhagen milieu, the social world of the Golden Age, and the specific streets and institutions that shaped Kierkegaard’s life and authorship.
  • Bruce H. Kirmmse (ed.), Encounters with Kierkegaard: A Life as Seen by His Contemporaries (Princeton University Press, 1996). A rich compilation of first-hand accounts from people who knew or observed Kierkegaard – in cafés, on the street, in church – giving an unusually vivid and place-specific sense of the man in his city.
  • Niels Thulstrup, Kierkegaards København (C.A. Reitzel, 1987). A scholarly yet accessible portrait of the city’s streets, squares, and inhabitants as the inescapable setting for Kierkegaard’s life and thought, by one of the leading Kierkegaard scholars of the twentieth century.
  • Villads Christensen, Søren Kierkegaard og Frederiksberg (Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1959). An account of Kierkegaard’s relationship to Frederiksberg – the garden suburb he visited throughout his life – drawing on local history and biographical sources.
  • Peter Thielst, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Copenhagen: A Concise and Pictorial Introduction (Det lille Forlag). A brief, richly illustrated guide situating Kierkegaard within the cultural and urban life of Copenhagen’s Golden Age, aimed at the general reader.
  • A. Egelund Møller, Søren Kierkegaard om sin kjære Hoved- og Residensstad, Kjøbenhavn (Attika, 1983).