Ch 3 April 10, 2024 THREE ON PSEUDONYMS AND ‘STYLE’ I. PSEUDONYMS What does it mean to sign one’s name, or withdraw it, at the close of a piece of writing? Librarians dedicate a yard of shelf space to an author they name ‘Kierkegaard,’ but opening the books shelved there, we find that they are written by a motley crew sporting names like ‘Johannes Climacus,’ ‘Johannes de silentio,’ ‘Vigilius Haufniensus,’ and many others. We could find the anonymous ‘A’, the enigmatic ‘Anti- Climacus’, one ‘Constantine Constantius,’ and so forth. Few in Copenhagen were fooled by these pseudonyms, nor are we fooled today. So why indulge Kierkegaard’s hide-and-seek? Is there a literary, moral, or religious rationale to this amusing veiling, unveiling? Are these phantom authors, instead, mere flourish, like a book’s front illustration or back cover blurb? 1 Pseudonyms are, to be sure, an attention-grabbing flourish but that’s hardly the end of the story. These flourishes make us ask what it means to be an author, what in a book’s impact is an impact of its author, and what ‘essential’ moral or religious truth (if any) authors and books can convey. At the very least, the pseudonymic flourish directs us away from pondering the street conversations, polemics, or broken engagements of an eccentric resident of 1840s and ‘50s Copenhagen. Yes, there is a tax-paying citizen found walking about town, possessed of an acerbic wit, fine gastronomic tastes, and a monstrous intelligence. Yet immediately before us is not citizen-Kierkegaard but Johannes de silentio (or Johannes Climacus), who buffers the citizen from our gaze. 65