Either/Or

Kierkegaard's first major pseudonymous work, presented as papers found in a second-hand writing desk by an editor called Victor Eremita. The first part contains the writings of 'A', a young aesthete: aphorisms (the Diapsalmata), essays on Mozart's Don Giovanni and on ancient and modern tragedy, a mock-serious essay recommending the 'rotation of crops' as a cure for boredom, and 'The Seducer's Diary', a cold record of a planned seduction. The second part consists of long letters to A from Judge William, a married civil servant, who argues for the ethical life of commitment, marriage and work, and claims that the real choice is to choose oneself. It ends with a sermon by a country pastor on the thought that before God we are always in the wrong. Kierkegaard does not say which side is right; the reader is left to choose.

It sets two whole ways of living side by side, pleasure and commitment, and makes the reader decide between them, which is why it remains a founding text of existentialism.