Stages on Life's Way, the sequel to Either/Or, is an intensely poetic example of Kierkegaard's vision of the three stages, or spheres, of existence: the esthetic, the ethical, and the religious. With characteristic love for mystification, he presents the work as a bundle of documents fallen by chance into the hands of Hilarius Bookbinder, who prepared them for printing. The book begins with a banquet scene patterned on Plato's Symposium. (George Brandes maintained that one must recognize with amazement that it holds its own in this comparison.) Next is a discourse by Judge William in praise of marriage in answer to objections. The remainder of the volume, almost two-thirds of the whole, is the diary of a young man, discovered by Frater Taciturnus, who was deeply in love but felt compelled to break his engagement. The work closes with a letter to the reader from Taciturnus on the three existence-spheres represented by the three parts of the book.