Berryman's Sickness Unto Death. (March 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mouw, Alex
• Is Part Of: Christianity and literature. Volume 67:Number 2(2018)
• Page Start: 361
• Page End: 378
• Publication Date: 2018-03
• Subjects: John Berryman -- Søren Kierkegaard -- Dream Songs -- Influence; Christianity and literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; 809.933823
• DOI: 10.1177/0148333117705668
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0148-3331

Abstract

In his copy of Søren Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death, John Berryman inserted a handwritten note entitled "Sense of Guilt, " which ends in an existential prayer: "I tremble — I am afraid — Jesus, Son of God, help me." Twenty years later, Berryman published one of his most substantial collections of poetry: 77 Dream Songs . And though the Dream Songs were published long after Berryman left his anxious comments in The Sickness Unto Death, I argue that they enact a struggle with the Christian concepts of despair and the self as Berryman learned them from Kierkegaard.