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Ashton explores Anderson and Kierkegaard’s relationships, literary outputs, and personal struggles in all their nuanced and dramatic detail.
In her unique dual biography, Kate Ashton delineates the parallel lives of Hans Christian Anderson and Søren Kierkegaard, their personal relationship, literary careers, and lasting cultural influence on the western and wider world. These two towering literary geniuses followed radically divergent paths, and yet each read and reacted to the immense power and depth of the other's growing oeuvre as it refracted their own. Against the backdrop of the end of Golden Age Denmark within a warring Europe, and the spiritual and sexual repression of Reformed Christianity, each suffered the fate of the prophet unhonoured in his hometown of Copenhagen.
Tracing their lives from childhood trauma to tragic love affairs and anguished isolation, Ashton illuminates counteractive response to experience: one an inward search for truth and self-knowledge, the other flight into distraction and fantasy. Mirrored Minds offers the reader an opportunity to explore each author and his legacy within the context of the other, just as their long-standing association held up a mirror for Anderson and Kierkegaard themselves.
In her unique dual biography, Kate Ashton delineates the parallel lives of Hans Christian Anderson and Søren Kierkegaard, their personal relationship, literary careers, and lasting cultural influence on the western and wider world. These two towering literary geniuses followed radically divergent paths, and yet each read and reacted to the immense power and depth of the other's growing oeuvre as it refracted their own. Against the backdrop of the end of Golden Age Denmark within a warring Europe, and the spiritual and sexual repression of Reformed Christianity, each suffered the fate of the prophet unhonoured in his hometown of Copenhagen.
Tracing their lives from childhood trauma to tragic love affairs and anguished isolation, Ashton illuminates counteractive response to experience: one an inward search for truth and self-knowledge, the other flight into distraction and fantasy. Mirrored Minds offers the reader an opportunity to explore each author and his legacy within the context of the other, just as their long-standing association held up a mirror for Anderson and Kierkegaard themselves.
Price: $36.95
Pages: 275
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Inc.
Imprint: Lutterworth Press
Publication Date:
24 April 2025
Trim Size: 9.02 X 5.98 in
ISBN: 9780718897512
Format: Paperback
In Mirrored Minds, Kate Ashton thoughtfully explores the neglected connection between Søren Kierkegaard and Hans Christian Andersen. With keen insight, she examines their intertwined lives, creative struggles, and continuing impact, offering a profound reflection on faith, doubt, reality, and imagination. Beautifully written, this book is not only fascinating but a joy to read.
— Prof. Andrew Torrance, Professor of Theology, School of Divinity, University of St Andrews
— Prof. Andrew Torrance, Professor of Theology, School of Divinity, University of St Andrews
Preface
1. Divine Doubt
2. A Lowland Habitat
3. The Path to Perdition
4. The Bridge of Sighs
5. Lily of the Valley
6. A Palace of Pretend
7. Into the Silence
8. Shadow Boxing
9. Esquisse
10. To Will One Thing
11. Divine Folly
1. Divine Doubt
2. A Lowland Habitat
3. The Path to Perdition
4. The Bridge of Sighs
5. Lily of the Valley
6. A Palace of Pretend
7. Into the Silence
8. Shadow Boxing
9. Esquisse
10. To Will One Thing
11. Divine Folly