My intent with the present piece is to show that in From the Papers of One Still Living, Published against His Will by S. Kjerkegaard (1838), Kierkegaard presents us with a critical review of Hans Christian Andersen’s Only a Fiddler (1837), which he bases on his notion that Andersen’s work is a failed attempt at a Bildungsroman. Following a brief presentation of the assumptions—both those concerning aesthetics and those that were typical of the period—implicit in Kierkegaard’s review, I point out a number of aspects of Andersen’s novel in connection with which I maintain that Kierkegaard himself does not live up to his own requirement that Andersen embrace a correct “outlook on life.” I support my argument by investigating the rhetoric of Kierkegaard’s review, and I conclude by suggesting that both Kierkegaard and Andersen should be considered modern writers and that this is attributable, not least, to their break with the literary metaphysics of the Bildungsroman.