SICKNESS UNTO DEATH, THE

'The Sickness Unto Death' is famed for the depth and acuity of its modern psychological insights. Writing under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus, Kierkegaard explores the concept of 'despair', alerting readers to the diversity of ways in which they may be described as living in this state of bleak abandonment - including some that may seem just the opposite - and offering a much-discussed formula for the eradication of despair. This late work was hugely influential upon twentieth-century philosophers including Jaspers, Sartre and Camus and it can be regarded as one of the key works of theistic existentialist thought.