Either/Or: A Fragment of Life was published by Søren Kierkegaard in 1843, making it his first major work. It was written under the pseudonym Victor Eremita “Victorious Hermit”.
The book expresses the viewpoints of two distinct figures with radically different beliefs – the unknown aesthetic young man of Part One, called simply “A”, and the ethical judge of Part II, which he calls “B”. The first part "Diapsalmata" contains some of Kierkegaard's most popular lines, such as the "unmovable chess piece", "the tragic clown", and "do it or don't do it, you'll regret it".
Kierkegaard was far more interested in making us think than in giving us answers. We are thus encouraged to decide for ourselves the merits of the various viewpoints presented.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (0:13) Preface (0:31) Part I. Containing the Papers of "A". Diapsalmata (1:29) Part I. The Immediate Erotic Stages or the Musical Erotic (2:41) Part I. Ancient Tragedy’s Reflection in the Modern (3:15) Part I. Shadowgraphs (3:57) Part I. The Unhappiest One (4:50) Part I. Crop Rotation (6:14) Part I. The Seducer’s Diary (7:14) Part II. Containing the Papers of “B”. The Aesthetic Validity of Marriage (7:58) Part II. Equilibrium between the Aesthetic and the Ethical (8:58) Part II. Last Word (9:23) Part II. The Edifying in the Thought that Against God We Are Always in the Wrong