Fear and Trembling (original Danish title: Frygt og Bæven) is a philosophical work by Søren Kierkegaard, published in 1843 under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio (Latin for John of the Silence).

Fear and Trembling speaks of many of Kierkegaard’s most well-known concepts, such as the absurd, knight of faith, single individual, teleological suspension of the ethical, three stages, tragic hero, and so on.

[4] Silentio then engages in extended praise of Abraham’s qualities and recounts much of the latter’s life up to and including the binding in the “Eulogy on Abraham.”[5] Finally, the “Preliminary Expectoration” introduces the concepts of faith and infinite resignation.

[6] The three problems Silentio engages are three thought experiments or setups that attempt to demonstrate how Abraham’s actions and internal state correspond to the religious category of faith and thereby transcend ethics.

He contrasts Abraham with three other figures—Agamemnon, Jephthah, and Brutus—who similarly had to sacrifice or impose capital punishment on their offspring but are nevertheless called “tragic heroes,” not knights of faith.

A series of folkloric myths and tales are analyzed to explain how the dynamics of concealment and disclosure of information in these stories interact with the categories of the aesthetic, ethical, and religious, and how these tensions are resolved through serendipity, self-sacrifice, or the absurd.

He explains that the tragic hero’s sacrifice is usually mediated by some kind of cultural background or disclosure that contextualizes his actions but that Abraham possesses no such security.