Art as religious commitment: Kafka's debt to Kierkegaardian ideas and their impact on his late stories

Although Kafkas reception of Kierkegaardian ideas has received much critica l attention the critics have so far paid little heed to similarities betwee n Kierkegaard's religious and Kafkas aesthetic views. My intention in the f ollowing is to show that in spite of Kafkas critical remarks on his philoso phy, Kierkegaards definition of a religious person influenced his descripti on of the artists existence in Erstes Leid (1922), Ein Hungerkunstler (1922 ) and Josefine, die Sangerin oder das Volk der Mause (1924). In these stori es Kafka turns Kierkegaards ideas about spiritual inwardness and passionate attitude towards religious life into artistic inwardness and passionate at titude towards art. He also describes how devotion that these artists feel towards their art leads to their solitude and how their lives reflect suffe ring, doubt and despair which is similar to Kierkegaards description of rel igious suffering. Kafkas critical remarks on Kierkegaards philosophy should therefore be understood as a clear rejection of Kierkegaards Protestant th eology, although these same ideas gave him inspiration to formulate his vie ws on the artists existence.