The passage contrasts two forms of desire. Kierkegaard’s speaker presents modern desire as directed towards what other people already possess, making it dependent on comparison, rivalry and envy. Calling such desire both “sinful” and “boring” combines a moral criticism with an aesthetic one: it is condemned not only for coveting another person’s possessions, but also for lacking imagination.

By contrast, the desire found in folk literature reaches towards something that neither the individual nor the neighbour possesses. It is therefore presented as more expansive and poetic, concerned with possibilities beyond ordinary competition. The quotation suggests that desire changes character when it is defined by other people’s advantages rather than by an independent vision of what is worth seeking. In this sense, the passage examines how social comparison can narrow aspiration and turn desire into imitation.

Full quotation

“The tremendous poetical power of folk literature is manifest, among other ways, in its power to desire. In comparison, desire in our age is simultaneously sinful and boring, because it desires what belongs to the neighbor. Desire in folk literature is fully aware that the neighbor does not possess what it seeks any more than it does itself.”