*
…Kierkegaard knows only too well what is at stake here.
How the mask can simultaneously both hide and reveal.
Especially for those who know how to look…
He chooses his psuedonyms very carefully, almost, too perfectly!
Johannes-de-Silentio.
‘Silent John’.
*
It has been surmised that Kierkegaard’s ‘John’ is a form of the Folk-Type, ‘Faithful John’,
and there is undoubtedly much profitable mileage to be gained by pursuing such a supposition.
Abraham, after all, fulfils many of the Folk-Story requisites, although, not for a king.
In the Folk-Tales the king dies leaving a son who still needs looking after…
By John!
*
Which makes ‘John’ sound like he can be petitioned.
A sort of ‘disembodied conscience’, if you will.
There is something of Pinocchio’s ‘talking cricket’ here,
who was killed with a mallet for offering advice,
only to return as a ‘ghost’ with yet more of the same…
*
In short, these tales are ‘Grateful Dead’ variants.
*
So then, are we not also bound to ask which ‘Biblical John’ was silenced?
And how?
And why?
And, even, by whom?
And then to notice, perchance, that Kierkegaard’s ‘John’,
is actually anything but silent!
*
Is this a clue?
It may well be.
Silent John, it seems, is obsessed by form.
In his quest for the modern day Knight-of-Faith form is everything.
He spends his days in pursuit of a physical sign, of an outward gesture,
a knowing glance, or even a raised eyebrow, and therein lies his down fall!
Yet, another clue…
*
