Either/Or by Søren Kierkegaard
Published 1843 · 640 pages · 251,496 words · about 21 hours at an average pace · Philosophy, Essays & Criticism
How hard is Either/Or to read?
Either/Or scores 66 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 65 out of 100
- Kierkegaard writes in multiple registers—aesthetic essays, love letters, ethical treatises—each with distinct vocabulary. The philosophical terminology (despair, the aesthetic, the ethical, repetition) is less technical than Hegel or Kant. The literary quality of the prose keeps vocabulary accessible despite philosophical depth.
- Sentence structure: 62 out of 100
- Varies dramatically by section: the Diapsalmata are aphoristic, the Seducer's Diary is novelistic, Judge Wilhelm's letters are discursive and lengthy. The ethical sections use longer, more complex sentences. Overall less syntactically demanding than German systematic philosophy.
- Abstraction: 82 out of 100
- The aesthetic sections remain grounded in art, music, and seduction. Judge Wilhelm's ethical arguments operate at higher abstraction. The philosophical framework—the choice between aesthetic and ethical modes of existence—is deeply abstract but clothed in literary form.
- Information density: 68 out of 100
- Kierkegaard's literary approach provides breathing room between philosophical arguments. The Seducer's Diary reads as a novella. Judge Wilhelm's letters are discursive and repetitive. Denser sections (the essay on Mozart's Don Giovanni) alternate with more leisurely passages.
- Narrative indirection: 70 out of 100
- Pseudonymous authorship, found manuscripts, editorial framing—layers of indirection.
- Symbolic density: 55 out of 100
- Less symbolic than rhetorical; the seducer's diary is its own kind of artifact.
- Ironic distance: 75 out of 100
- Pervasive irony especially in A's papers; Kierkegaard's position remains hidden.
- Resolution withholding: 80 out of 100
- The title is the point: choice is required but not made for the reader.
- Structural complexity: 65 out of 100
- Two volumes representing two life-views; embedded texts; editorial fiction.
How Either/Or is regarded
Either/Or holds a literary regard score of 83 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.