Repetition: An Essay in Experimental Psychology
Framed as an 'essay in experimental psychology' by the pseudonymous narrator Constantin Constantius, Repetition explores whether genuine repetition—re-attaining a previous happiness or existential state—is possible. Through Constantin’s failed attempt to reenact an earlier pleasurable trip to Berlin and his involvement in the story of a young man torn between poetic love and religious inwardness, the work contrasts aesthetic recollection with existential repetition, ultimately suggesting that true repetition is bound up with faith, inwardness, and the forward movement of existence rather than the literal return of the same.
At a Glance
- Author
- Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (published under the pseudonym Constantin Constantius)
- Composed
- Spring–autumn 1843
- Language
- Danish
- Status
- original survives
- •Repetition versus recollection: The central argument distinguishes recollection (a backward-looking aesthetic activity idealized by Greek philosophy and poetry) from repetition (a forward-moving existential category rooted in temporality, decision, and faith). Repetition is not the mere return of an earlier state but the renewed appropriation of existence under new conditions.
- •The impossibility of mechanical repetition: Through Constantin’s experiment of redoing his earlier Berlin journey, the text argues that attempts to reproduce a prior experience in its empirical details are doomed to fail, since time, the self, and circumstances change. This failure is used to show that authentic repetition cannot be a literal recurrence of events.
- •Existential development and anxiety: The young man’s love story illustrates that the movement from aesthetic imagination to ethical and religious existence involves anxiety, renunciation, and a break with purely poetic self-understanding. His inability to marry and his subsequent withdrawal show how existential transitions disrupt simple continuity and expose the self to inward suffering.
- •Repetition as a category of faith: The work intimates—without systematizing it—that genuine repetition belongs to religious existence, exemplified by Job from the Hebrew Bible. In faith, what is lost can be received again in a transformed mode, not as simple restoration but as a renewed gift that presupposes trust in God rather than reliance on memory or calculation.
- •Pseudonymity and indirect communication: By staging the inquiry through the ironic, somewhat comic narrator Constantin and the 'young man', Kierkegaard argues indirectly that philosophical and religious truths about existence cannot be communicated didactically. The text’s literary form and pseudonymity enact its own thesis: existential insight is something the reader must 'repeat' inwardly rather than merely recollect conceptually.
*Repetition* has come to be regarded as one of Kierkegaard’s most original and enigmatic works, centrally important for the development of existential philosophy and for later reflections on time, identity, and faith. Its analysis of repetition as a forward-moving category informs later thinkers such as Heidegger, Deleuze, and Ricoeur, and its literary-pseudonymous form has influenced 20th‑century debates about authorship, narrative, and indirect communication. Within Kierkegaard’s authorship it marks a key bridge between the aesthetic psychology of *Either/Or* and the explicitly religious works, foreshadowing the existential categories of decision, inwardness, and anxiety that shape his later writings.
1. Introduction
Repetition: An Essay in Experimental Psychology is a short, deliberately puzzling treatise published in 1843 under the pseudonym Constantin Constantius. It investigates whether repetition—understood not as mere recurrence but as somehow “getting something back” in time—is possible for a human life. Rather than presenting a systematic theory, the work stages an experiment: Constantin first tries to repeat a past pleasure by reenacting a trip to Berlin; later, he observes and interprets the inner turmoil of a young man whose broken engagement becomes a testing ground for the idea of repetition.
The book’s subtitle signals its method. “Experimental psychology” here names an ironic attempt to treat inner experience as an observable field, while at the same time showing the limits of such quasi‑scientific observation. The narrative oscillates between comic episodes and intense reflections on love, memory, decision, and faith.
Interpreters generally agree that Repetition elaborates a new existential category distinct from both habitual recurrence and nostalgic recollection. They differ, however, on whether the work offers a primarily psychological, ethical, or religious account of repetition, and on how far the pseudonymous narrator can be taken as a reliable guide. The text’s open ending invites readers to appropriate the problem of repetition for their own lives rather than rest in a finished doctrine.
2. Historical and Intellectual Context
2.1 Danish and European Milieu
Repetition emerged in Copenhagen in 1843, amid debates over Hegelianism, Lutheran theology, and the shape of modern bourgeois life. Kierkegaard’s Denmark was marked by a relatively small, educated public sphere and a dominant but, in his view, complacent established church.
| Context | Relevance for Repetition |
|---|---|
| Danish Golden Age culture | Provided a literate audience familiar with Romantic poetry and philosophy, against which the book’s critique of aestheticism is directed. |
| Lutheran state church | Formed the background for the work’s allusions to biblical figures such as Job and its oblique treatment of faith. |
| Rising bourgeois domestic ideals | Informed the portrayal of engagement and marriage as ethical institutions under pressure from aesthetic subjectivity. |
2.2 Philosophical and Literary Backgrounds
Commentators typically emphasize three main backgrounds:
| Influence | Possible Impact |
|---|---|
| German Idealism (especially Hegel) | The contrast between recollection and repetition is often read as a challenge to speculative philosophies that supposedly sublate temporality into conceptual memory. |
| Romanticism and aestheticism | The young man’s poetic stance reflects Romantic ideals of inwardness and ironic distance, which the text both employs and critiques. |
| Ancient philosophy (Plato, Stoicism) | The valorization of recollection as a philosophical attitude is contrasted with a more modern, forward‑oriented notion of repetition. |
While some scholars connect Repetition closely to contemporary psychological and scientific interests, others stress its polemical relation to philosophical systems and to what Kierkegaard saw as an overly reflective, literary culture.
3. Author, Pseudonym, and Composition
3.1 Kierkegaard and Constantin Constantius
The book is authored by Søren Aabye Kierkegaard but attributed to the fictional Constantin Constantius, presented as an “observer” practicing “experimental psychology.” Pseudonymity allows Kierkegaard to distance himself from the views expressed, encouraging readers to treat Constantin as a character rather than a transparent spokesman.
Proponents of a “double authorship” view argue that Kierkegaard uses Constantin’s ironic, often comic voice to explore positions that his signed religious works will later critique or deepen. Others maintain that Constantin articulates key Kierkegaardian insights, albeit in a deliberately indirect manner.
3.2 Composition and Publication Circumstances
Repetition was written in 1843, alongside Fear and Trembling, and published on the same day by C.A. Reitzel in Copenhagen. Manuscript evidence in Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter suggests intensive drafting during spring–autumn 1843, overlapping with work on Either/Or and other pseudonymous texts.
| Aspect | Detail |
|---|---|
| Period of composition | Spring–autumn 1843 (approximate) |
| First publication | 16 October 1843, Copenhagen |
| Pseudonymous pairing | Appeared simultaneously with Fear and Trembling (Johannes de Silentio) |
| Surviving materials | Autograph drafts preserved; used in modern critical editions |
Scholars debate whether Kierkegaard conceived Repetition primarily as a companion to Fear and Trembling or as a continuation of the aesthetic–ethical tensions of Either/Or. Consensus holds that it occupies a transitional place in his early authorship, exploring psychological and religious themes in experimental narrative form.
4. Structure and Narrative Organization
Repetition is compact but structurally complex, mixing narrative, letters, and essayistic reflection. Commentators commonly distinguish five main movements that correspond closely to the work’s internal development.
| Part (approximate) | Narrative Focus | Dominant Mode |
|---|---|---|
| Opening chapters | Constantin’s programmatic reflections on repetition and recollection | Theoretical, essayistic |
| Berlin journey | Account of attempted empirical repetition in Berlin | Comic travel narrative |
| Young man’s letters | The young man’s story of engagement and crisis | Epistolary, confessional |
| Constantin’s analyses | Commentary on the young man and types of repetition | Psychological and conceptual reflection |
| Concluding remarks | Failure of experiments and open-ended closure | Self-reflexive, fragmentary |
4.1 Framing Devices
The work is framed as Constantin’s “report” of experiments in repetition. The shift from his own Berlin attempt to the young man’s love story marks a movement from outward action to inward subjectivity. The alternation of letters and commentary creates a layered perspective: the reader sees both the young man’s first-person struggles and Constantin’s observational analyses.
4.2 Open Ending
The narrative does not fully resolve the young man’s fate or the concept of repetition. The final pages reflect on the limits of Constantin’s method and leave the central problem suspended. Some interpreters see this as an intentional structural feature, designed to force the reader into a kind of existential “repetition” of the inquiry.
5. Central Arguments and Themes
5.1 Repetition versus Recollection
The book’s central argumentative thread contrasts repetition with recollection (memory). Constantin asserts that recollection is essentially backward‑looking and aesthetic, while repetition is future‑oriented and existential. Recollection idealizes what is past; repetition, if possible, would recover or renew something within the flux of time.
“Repetition and recollection are the same movement, only in opposite directions; for what is recollected has been, is repeated backward, whereas genuine repetition is recollected forward.”
— Constantin Constantius, Repetition (paraphrased from early chapters)
Interpreters disagree on how literal this “same movement” is meant to be. Some emphasize strict opposition; others stress their structural kinship.
5.2 Impossibility of Mechanical Repetition
Constantin’s Berlin experiment supports the thesis that empirical duplication of experiences fails. The same external circumstances do not yield the same inner quality. This undercuts any naïve notion that repetition is mere recurrence of events.
5.3 Existential Development, Anxiety, and Renunciation
The young man’s love story illustrates how movement from an aesthetic life of imagination toward ethical or religious existence involves anxiety, loss, and renunciation. His broken engagement dramatizes the disruption of continuity and the difficulty of sustaining commitments through time.
5.4 Repetition and Faith
Later reflections connect genuine repetition with faith and the biblical figure of Job. Here repetition denotes receiving back what was lost “with interest,” yet in a transformed way. Some commentators regard this as a proto‑existential account of religious life; others see it more narrowly as a literary-theological motif.
5.5 Indirect Communication and Experiment
Finally, the text argues—performatively rather than didactically—that existential truths cannot be conveyed as finished doctrines. The experimental form, irony, and pseudonymity are themselves central themes, suggesting that repetition must be “appropriated” by the reader rather than simply understood conceptually.
6. Key Concepts, Characters, and Famous Passages
6.1 Key Concepts
| Concept | Brief Characterization |
|---|---|
| Repetition (Gjentagelse) | A forward-directed category where a relation or state is renewed under changed conditions; closely tied to decision, continuity, and, in its highest form, faith. |
| Recollection (Erindring) | An idealizing, backward relation to the past, associated with poetry, philosophy, and the aesthetic stance. |
| Experimental psychology | Constantin’s ironic term for observing and “testing” inner life through narrative experiments rather than laboratory methods. |
6.2 Principal Characters
| Character | Function in the Work |
|---|---|
| Constantin Constantius | Narrator-observer who conducts experiments in repetition; combines wit, detachment, and occasional desperation. |
| The Young Man | An unnamed, highly reflective lover whose broken engagement exemplifies the conflict between aesthetic, ethical, and religious orientations. |
| The Fiancée | Largely indirect presence, functioning as the occasion for the young man’s crisis rather than a psychologically developed figure. |
| Job | Biblical paradigm of religious repetition: one who loses everything and, through faith, receives it back in a transformed sense. |
6.3 Famous Passages and Episodes
-
The Berlin Journey (early chapters)
Constantin tries to re‑create an earlier delightful stay in Berlin—same boarding house, theaters, routines. The outcome is comically disappointing, illustrating the failure of mechanical repetition. -
The Theory of Repetition versus Recollection (programmatic opening)
Here Constantin sets out the conceptual contrast that underlies the whole work. This passage is frequently cited in discussions of Kierkegaard’s philosophy of time. -
The Young Man’s Letters (central epistolary section)
The letters chart the intensifying inner conflict around the engagement, displaying the young man’s oscillation between poetic self‑understanding, ethical duty, and emerging religious concern. -
Job as Exemplar (later reflections)
Constantin presents Job as embodying the highest form of repetition, where what is lost is given again by God. This section is central to theological and existential interpretations of the text.
7. Legacy and Historical Significance
Although initially little noticed, Repetition has come to occupy a central place in interpretations of Kierkegaard and in the broader history of existential and continental thought.
7.1 Influence within Philosophy and Theology
Philosophers and theologians have drawn on the work’s account of time, identity, and faith:
| Thinker / Field | Mode of Reception |
|---|---|
| Martin Heidegger | Engages Kierkegaard’s idea of repetition in analyses of historicity and authentic existence, though often indirectly. |
| Gilles Deleuze | Critically reworks repetition in Difference and Repetition, treating Kierkegaard as a key interlocutor for a non-identical, creative notion of repetition. |
| Paul Ricoeur and narrative theorists | Use repetition to explore memory, narrative identity, and reinterpretation of the past. |
| Theologians (Lutheran, Reformed, Catholic) | Debate its portrayal of faith, Job, and the relation between loss, gift, and temporal renewal. |
Some read Repetition as a foundational existential text; others situate it more narrowly within 19th‑century debates on psychology and faith.
7.2 Place in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
Within Kierkegaard studies, Repetition is widely seen as:
- A bridge between the aesthetic analyses of Either/Or and later religious works.
- A key source for categories like decision, inwardness, and becoming a self.
- An exemplary instance of indirect communication, influencing interpretations of Kierkegaard’s entire pseudonymous corpus.
7.3 Ongoing Debates
Current scholarship continues to contest:
- How strictly “religious” the concept of repetition is in this text.
- Whether Constantin’s perspective is ultimately affirmed, surpassed, or merely problematized.
- The psychological plausibility and ethical implications of the young man’s story, including its gendered dynamics.
Through these debates, Repetition remains a focal point for discussions of how individuals relate to their past, sustain commitments, and interpret the possibility of renewal in time.
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title = {repetition-an-essay-in-experimental-psychology},
author = {Philopedia},
year = {2025},
url = {https://philopedia.com/works/repetition-an-essay-in-experimental-psychology/},
urldate = {December 11, 2025}
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