Enacting authenticity: Peter Nichols' Passion Play and Søren Kierkegaard's Either/Or in dialogue

Journal article

This article expands and develops current reformulations of the term ‘authenticity’ by juxtaposing Peter Nichols’s dramatic presentation of (in)authentic behavior in Passion Play, Søren Kierkegaard’s writings on authenticity, and recent studies in psychology and affective neuroscience. Re-thinking Kierkegaard’s views on identity and autonomy in relation to Nichols’s presentation of the experiences of betrayal, despair, and self-governance, the article explores how innovative theatrical performance may cause spectators to physically simulate various modes of existential choice, and elucidates the constitutive role played by bodily responses in the shaping of self-understanding and interpersonal communication. While sharing aspects of Kierkegaard’s category of the ‘individual’, as a person who is fully conscious of him/her self and takes responsibility for that self’s conduct, the model of authentic self-becoming that emerges from this discussion is anchored in a balance between attunement to bodily cues, self-directed reflection, and decisive action.

Authors: Rokotnitz, N

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Journal: Anglia: Journal of English Philology
• Volume: 135
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 467–489
• Publication date: 2017-09-19
• Acceptance date: 2016-10-27
• DOI: 10.1515/ang-2017-0046
• EISSN: 1865-8938
• ISSN: 0340-5222