The Three Masks

(The various works of Søren Kierkegaard propose a remarkable thesis. It is that there are three critical stages upon life’s way, and that these stages are the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. The aesthetic is the stage of hedonism and diversified feeling. The ethical is the stage of personal commitment through earnest choice. The religious is a state of grace where by faith one has passed beyond even the postulates of morality into the direct relationship with God. To illuminate these stages, Søren Kierkegaard (an accomplished Greek tragic actor to the very last) assumes three masks beautifully wrought by others: the mask of Don Juan, the mask of Socrates, and the mask of Don Quixote. They are exquisite masks, and the voice which issues through them also moves us irresistibly. just this, of course, was Kierkegaard’s intention. It was he who said: “A man who cannot seduce men cannot save them either.”)

First Mask:
DON JUAN