The Philosophers Walk

The Square of Our Lady was crossed by Søren Kierkegaard many times.

The University of Copenhagen is located near the church. This is where Søren Kirkegaard spent most of his time between 1831 – 1841, as he defended his thesis and gave lectures. The main building had been bombed during the war, and had only just been rebuilt when he in 1841 defended his thesis. The thesis consisted of more than 800 written pages on the topic of irony.

Even though he quarreled with the priests, some of whom gave their sermons at the Church of Our Lady, this was still where he went to hear the word of God. When he died, the funeral service was held at the Church of Our Lady, on November 18, 1955. The newspaper Fædrelandet (“Our Nation”) wrote: “If one needed a witness to attest to the peculiarities of the man who was buried yesterday, they came by the thousands who filled every spot in the Church of Our Lady, such that this, but for the lack of mourning decorations, looked exactly like it had when Thorvaldsen, Oechlenschläger and Ørsted were put to rest.”

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Nytorv 2 was where Søren Aabye Kirkegaard was born on May 5, 1813. When he left home at the age of 24, he only moved a couple of streets away.
The philosopher loved Copenhagen and rarely left the city. Day after day, night after night, he walked the streets of Copenhagen in the 1800s and met up with – among other people – H.C. Andersen. Imagine Copenhagen in the 1800s: a much smaller town inside fortified walls where the houses primarily were small and the stench from garbage in the street was strong.
In 1844, after both of his parents had passed away, he moved back into his childhood home on Nytorv 2. He lived on the first floor to the left until 1848.

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Klareboderne was where Søren Kierkegaard attended the Borgerdydsskole (the “virtuous citizens’ school”) between the ages of five and 17. This was one of the three schools in Copenhagen at the time which prepared its students to continue onto university. The slight, skinny boy was known as a funny and impertinent student, who teased his classmates and would even answer back to the teacher. He did well in school, but was in no way extraordinary.

A typical school day for Søren would begin at 9 a.m. and end around 7 p.m., although their lunch break did last a couple of hours. In the upper classes he and his classmates slogged their way through 45 hours of classes a week. 13 hours were spent on Latin, six hours on Greek, six on essay writing, six on history, three on religion studies, three on mathematics, two on German, two on French, and two on Danish.

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