Despair

Abstract

Despair (Fortvivlelse-noun; fortvivle-verb) The Old Modern Danish (l500-1700) verb 'fortvivle' is a loan word from the Middle Low German 'vortwivelen'. 'Fortvivle' corresponds to the modem German 'verzweijeln'. The Danish lexical meaning is: a condition of deep psychic distress characterized by despondency, hopelessness and grief. It has a secondary meaning of desperation. It is worth noting that the Danish word contains the word for "doubt," namely 'Tvivl', which comes from the Germanic 'twi-fla', meaning double. One meaning of the Danish prefixfor is that the action of the verb to which it is appended is intensified to a ruinous extreme. In this case, 'fortvivle' would be a ruinous doubting, or double-mindedness. The notion of despair, as a potential subject of writing, occurs in Kierkegaard's journals as early as 1835. There it is found in his consideration of Don Juan, Faust, and Ahasverus or the Wandering Jew, whom he sees as incarnations, respectively, of desire, doubt, and despair. In 1839 Kierkegaard considered writing his dissertation on the topic of suicide, whose motive he took ultimately to be despair. In another journal entry devoted to consideration of 'acedia' and 'tristitia' both as illness and sin, Kierkegaard notes in the margin "this is what my father called: a quiet despair."