Andreas Frederik Beck's Review of Kierkegaard's on the Concept of Irony

This article provides an English translation (with commentary) of Andreas Frederik Beck's review of Kierkegaard's On the Concept of Irony. Beck's review is notable for its detailed, scholarly discussion of Kierkegaard's text. While Beck draws attention to the unusual style of Kierkegaard's dissertation and to Kierkegaard's occasional use of irony, he does not treat the dissertation as itself ironic in overall form or intent. Kierkegaard's response to this review, in which he makes the rare acknowledgement that Beck "has come quite close to having understood" him, provides indirect textual support for thinking that Beck is right in regarding Kierkegaard's treatise on irony as a serious, scholarly work that is not itself essentially ironic.