"In the vast literature of love, The Seducer's Diary is an intricate curiosity--a feverishly intellectual attempt to reconstruct an erotic failure as a pedagogic success, a wound masked as a boast," observes John Updike in his foreword to Søren Kierkegaard's narrative. This work, a chapter from Kierkegaard's first major volume, Either/Or, springs from his relationship with his fiancée, Regine Olsen. Kierkegaard fell in love with the young woman, ten years his junior, proposed to her, but then broke off their engagement a year later. This event affected Kierkegaard profoundly. Olsen became a muse for him, and a flood of volumes resulted. His attempt to set right, in writing, what he feels was a mistake in his relationship with Olsen taught him the secret of "indirect communication." The Seducer's Diary, then, becomes Kierkegaard's attempt to portray himself as a scoundrel and thus make their break easier for her.</p>
Matters of marriage, the ethical versus the aesthetic, dread, and, increasingly, the severities of Christianity are pondered by Kierkegaard in this intense work.</p>
索伦•克尔凯郭尔
（1813—1855）
丹麦哲学家，存在主义哲学之父。
克尔凯郭尔在27岁时与少女蕾吉娜订婚。然而由于自己敏感的性格，他又解除了婚约。《诱惑者日记》折射了这段经历，而这也成为他全部哲学思索的一个支点。
克尔凯郭尔终生冥想“如何去做一个基督徒”。他认为， 面对“不可能”，人只能作出“绝望的一跃”，直接进入精神生活。
多年之后，晚年的蕾吉娜说：“他把我作为牺牲献给了上帝。”