Finitude, Necessity, and Healing from Despair in Kierkegaard's The Lily and the Bird

ABSTRACT This study underscores The Lily and the Bird's response to despair in The Sickness unto Death. By suggesting in The Lily and the Bird that we look to nature's creatures to learn an attunement and responsiveness to our situation as physical creatures subject to finite constraints,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of religious ethics Vol. 52; no. 1; pp. 95 - 113
Main Author Strelis Söderquist, Anna Louise
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Malden Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.03.2024
Subjects
Dependence
despair
Emotions
finitude
joy
Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard, Soren Aabye (1813-1855)
Literary criticism
necessity
Text analysis
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ISSN0384-9694
1467-9795
DOI10.1111/jore.12448

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Summary:ABSTRACT This study underscores The Lily and the Bird's response to despair in The Sickness unto Death. By suggesting in The Lily and the Bird that we look to nature's creatures to learn an attunement and responsiveness to our situation as physical creatures subject to finite constraints, Kierkegaard's text comes into dialogue with a form of misalignment portrayed in The Sickness unto Death as a refusal of the given, “the finite,” and “the necessary.” One way of seeking alignment in The Lily and the Bird entails learning to hear and to answer within one's given environment, opening up the possibility of embodied joy.
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ISSN:0384-9694
1467-9795
DOI:10.1111/jore.12448