Philosopher of the Heart is the groundbreaking biography of renowned existentialist Søren Kierkegaard’s life and creativity, and a searching exploration of how to be a human being in the world. Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most passionate and challenging of all modern philosophers, and is often regarded as the founder of existentialism. Over about a decade in the 1840s and 1850s, writings poured from his pen pursuing the question of existence―how to be a human being in the world?―while exploring the possibilities of Christianity and confronting the failures of its institutional manifestation around him. Much of his creativity sprang from his relationship with the young woman whom he promised to marry, then left to devote himself to writing, a relationship which remained decisive for the rest of his life. He deliberately lived in the swim of human life in Copenhagen, but alone, and died exhausted in 1855 at the age of 42, bequeathing his remarkable writings to his erstwhile fiancée. Clare Carlisle’s innovative and moving biography writes Kierkegaard’s life as far as possible from his own perspective, to convey what it was like actually being this Socrates of Christendom―as he put it, living life forwards yet only understanding it backwards. "Carlisle . . . has an absolute mastery of Kierkegaard’s life and works. At the same time, she is a lucid and stylish writer who shares some of her subject’s suspicions of the academic approach. She succeeds wonderfully at what is obviously her chief goal, which is to give us some sense of why Kierkegaard’s task mattered so urgently for him, and of why it might matter for us." ―Christopher Beha, Harper's "[A] sparkling, penetrative new biography . . . With [her] unconventional structure . . . Carlisle is better able to crack open the philosopher's life . . . [ Philosopher of the Heart ] is an essential guide to those beginning or reembarking on their Kierkegaard journey." ―Sophie Madeline Dess, Washington Post "Carlisle tells the story out of chronological order and adds passages of novel-like scene-setting . . . The vignettes feel like packaging that the reader must unwrap to get to what is really excellent in the book: Carlisle’s analysis of Kierkegaard’s intellectual milieu." ―Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker "Carlisle is capable of sketching a vivid picture . . . [T]hose already captivated by Kierkegaard are likely to have their passion reignited." ―Justin Taylor, Bookforum " Søren Kierkegaard, the influential 19th-century Danish philosopher, has been the subject of many excellent biographies. But none, until Clare Carlisle’s new biography, Philosopher of the Heart , have considered so seriously, and with such depth and eloquence, the issue that surely would have most interested Kierkegaard himself: what it feels like to live the question of existence, the question of how to be a human being . . . A book that seeks to restore the human gravity to Kierkegaard’s life of work, it is as concerned as Kierkegaard himself was with the quiet miracle of how we relate to one another, and to ourselves, in search." ― Lithub "[Carlisle] judiciously mines Kierkegaard's works and considerable scholarship to elucidate the philosopher's life, mind, and struggles . . . A perceptive portrait of an enigmatic thinker." ― Kirkus "For those interested in Kierkegaard's legacy, but bewildered by the sheer volume of his writings, Carlisle opens a compact but insightful gateway onto his work, one designed to entrance as well as inform. For those of us who have been reading the man long enough to forget why we began, Carlisle offers a bracing reminder of the human drama, the passionate conviction, that drew us to Kierkegaard in the first place." ―A sher Gelzer-Govatos, The Russell Kirk Center "Extroardinary . . . we are fortunate to have in Carlisle an extraordinarily lucid and perceptive interpreter. Densely researched yet compellingly fleet-footed, Philosopher of the Heart frames Kierkegaard’s writing as a difficult and demanding examination of what it means to be an individual human being in the tumultuous and changing world of 1840s Copenhagen." ―MORTEN HØI JENSEN, The American Interest "One of Carlisle’s great achievements is to present with an immediacy of feeling both the struggle of Kierkegaard’s life and its mundane reality. Her descriptions of Kierkegaard the writer are strikingly visceral―we can see him pacing his room, writing his life into being at the same time that he is almost literally working himself to death . . . Carlisle’s Kierkegaard reminds us that the solution to this anxiety is not necessarily more freedom, but more love." ―Alan Van Wyk, Christian Century “Carlisle writes with verve and sympathy . . . this lucid and riveting new biography at once rescues Kierkegaard from the scholars and makes it abundantly clear why he is such an intriguing and useful figure.” ―Adam Philips, Observer “ Philosopher of the Heart enacts Kie