KIERKEGAARD’S PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS IN THORNTON WILDER’S NOVELS
The article deals with the impact of Kierkegaard’s ideas on Thornton Wilder’s philosophical novels. Far from being the only major influence, this impact helps to make clear certain ideological points in the writer’s works and cannot be underestimated. After discovering Kierkegaard’s works in his early youth, Thornton Wilder kept returning to them during all his life. As a result, Kierkegaard’s philosophical ideas managed to find their way into most of Wilder’s novels, though the writer didn’t simply illustrate them with his own examples but made them an integral part of his own world, blending them with his own ideas, and entering into some controversy with them in his later works. At different stages of his writing career Wilder gave special attention to different aspects of Kierkegaard’s philosophy. The concept of faith was central to his early books, from The Cabala to Heaven’s My Destination; the concept of freedom became important in his mature works, The Ides of March in particular; while his last novels, The Eighth Day and Theophilus North, developed the idea of creative evolution.
Keywords: Thornton Wilder, Søren Kierkegaard, philosophical influence, philosophical novel, knight of faith, road to faith, existentialism, existential sphere, aesthetic stage, ethical stage, religious stage, freedom, creativity
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Issue: 6, 2015
Series of issue: Issue 6
Rubric: RUSSIAN AND FOREIGN LITERATURE OF THE XX CENTURY
Pages: 219 — 225
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