RT Article
T1 Valuable Vice: Kierkegaard on Collective Envy in A Literary Review
JF Religions
VO 14
IS 11
A1 Compaijen, Rob
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1869864867
AB In this paper, I explore Kierkegaard’s views on envy as developed in A Literary Review, by confronting them with the capital vices tradition. I begin by developing a basic account of envy that serves as a point of reference throughout the paper. I then turn to the capital vices tradition, elaborating the concept of a capital vice, and discussing the views of Basil of Caesarea, Evagrius of Pontus, John Cassian, Gregory the Great, and Thomas Aquinas on envy’s viciousness. Subsequently, I discuss Kierkegaard’s treatment of envy in A Literary Review, exploring two of its key notions—‘the public’ and ‘leveling’—through a reading of L.P. Hartley’s novel Facial Justice (1960). In the final part of the paper, I show that the originality of Kierkegaard’s account of envy consists both in its character as a collective vice and its evaluative status as vicious yet valuable.
K1 Facial Justice
K1 Self-worth
K1 Ostracism
K1 collective character traits
K1 deadly sins
K1 capital vices
K1 the public
K1 leveling
K1 Kierkegaard
K1 Envy
DO 10.3390/rel14111397