Though his writings are often brilliantly poetic and often deeply
philosophic, Kierkegaard was neither a poet nor a philosopher, but a
preacher, an expounder and defender of Christian doctrine and Christian
conduct. The near contemporary with whom he may properly be compared is
not someone like Dostoevsky or Hegel, but that other great preacher of
the nineteenth century, John Henry, later Cardinal, Newman: both men
were faced with the problem of preaching to a secularized society which
was still officially Christian...
-- W.H. Auden. Introduction to The Living Thoughts Of Kierkegaard by Soren Kierkegaard, selected by Auden.