Review of Hannay, Alastair and Marino, Gordon D. eds., 'The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard', Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 428

The 'Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard' is a collection of sound scholarly articles, which cover a substantial range of disciplinary areas in Kierkegaard studies. The most salient feature of the articles in general is their lucidity. Andrew Cross's chapter on irony is probably the clearest, most systematic explication of Kierkegaardian irony I have read. It does not restrict its discussion to the material in 'The Concept of Irony', but also discusses the changes in Kierkegaard's conception of irony through to 'Concluding Unscientific Postscript'. The chapter's shortcoming, which is also its strength, is that (apparently) the mode of presentation of the subject matter is itself without irony.