If I have to compare this book to any other, I would compare it to Plato's Phaedrus. In Phaedrus, Socrates talks to Phaedrus of how to speak of love authentically, i.e. to speak of love in such a way that the speaking itself is an act of love. The problem is that we are never brought into connection with Socrates' speech. It is always about Phaedrus and we are eavesdroppers and therefore similtaneously included and excluded from what is said. As Plato put it, the written word is a pharmakon (drug, medicine, poison), it cannot speak authentically of love. This is the philosophical point of Works of Love. In it, Kierkegaard attempts to speak authentically of love. This is why the book is published on his own name and there are no pseudonyms. He is writing directly to the reader who is his beloved. He, however, must redefine the terms of the discourse. Since Eros is a love of beauty and he cannot see the reader's beauty, he speaks instead of Agape (in danish Kjerlighed, i.e. Christian love), or love of neighbor. In this way whoever reads the book becomes his beloved, to whom the discourse is aimed. In this way he attempts to get past Plato's empasse. I think he suceeds.
