Dinesen, Isak (1885 - 1962) | Introduction
Introduction
(Born Karen Christentze Dinesen; also known by her married name Karen Blixen; also wrote under the pseudonyms Tania Blixen, Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel) Danish short story writer, autobiographer, novelist, playwright, and translator.
Dinesen is best known for Seven Gothic Tales (1934) and the autobiographical novel Out of Africa (1937; Den afrikanske farm). Acclaimed for her poetic prose style, complex characters, and intricate plots, Dinesen explored such themes as the lives and values of aristocrats, the nature of fate and destiny, God and the supernatural, the artist, and the place of women in society. Her works defy easy categorization, though she incorporated elements of Gothic and horror as well as humor in her stories. Hailed as a proto-feminist by some critics, scorned as a colonialist by others, Dinesen is chiefly regarded as a masterful storyteller. Ernest Hemingway remarked that the Nobel Prize for Literature he received in 1954 should have been awarded to her.
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Born in Rungsted, Denmark, Dinesen was the daughter of an army officer who was a friend of Hans Christian Andersen and who wrote a book
MAJOR WORKS
Seven Gothic Tales is a collection of short stories written in a romantic style, employing fantasy to explore aristocratic sensibilities and values. In "The Deluge at Norderney," a Cardinal directs his high-born companions to give up their places on a boat to save peasants during a flood. "The Dreamers," one of Dinesen's most traditionally Gothic stories, tells of a mysterious, beautiful singer who lost her voice due to an accident. Devastated by her loss, she travels through Europe, constantly changing her identity and taking on a series of lovers. Out of Africa presents Dinesen's experiences as a British coffee plantation owner in East Africa, documenting her relationship with the Africans who lived and worked on and around her plantation, her divorce from Baron Blixen, her affair with Denys Finch-Hatton, and the failure of her coffee enterprise. The short stories in Winter's Tales (1942), with their simpler narrative style and attention to landscape, history, and life of Denmark, solidified Dinesen's standing in the Danish literary community. "Sorrow-Acre" is based on a medieval Danish folktale and is set in eighteenth-century Denmark. The story examines the inevitable social consequences of the master-servant relationship: how aristocratic values and traditions govern the attitudes and actions of a landlord toward a thieving serf and his mother. During the Nazi occupation of Denmark, Dinesen wrote The Angelic Avengers (1946), a mystery-thriller about two orphaned girls. The manuscript was smuggled out of Denmark and published under the pseudonym Pierre Andrézel. Dinesen continually denied authorship of the book, however, because she was unsatisfied with its literary quality. Last Tales (1957) is a collection of short stories divided into three sections—New Gothic Tales, New Winter's Tales, and Tales from Albondocani. These works represent a return to her earlier literary style, themes, and characters. In "Echoes," for instance, Pellegrina Leoni, who first appears in Seven Gothic Tales, is an ex-opera star, devastated by the loss of her voice. Consequently, a disgruntled Pellegrina uses elaborate disguises to ensure her anonymity. She remarks that when it comes to fate and life, God can be both a charlatan and "jokester" with his human creations. Skygger paa Græsset (1960; Shadows on the Grass) recalls Dinesen's African experiences. In this nonfiction work she focuses on the lives of several of the African servants and friends about whom she first wrote in Out of Africa. The novel Ehrengard (1963) was published posthumously and was Dinesen's last work. Its themes include the notion of the artist as creator and interpreter of life. The story follows the artist Cazotte's lust for Ehrengard, while she sits for a portrait. Cazotte's objective is to humiliate her and in the process diabolically usurp God's role as the defining artist of creation and master of life. Among Dinesen's other posthumously published works are Carnival: Entertainments and Posthumous Tales (1977); Breve fra Afrika 1914–31 (1978; Letters from Africa: 1914–1931), which contains her correspondence with family and friends during her years in Africa; and Daguerreotypes, and Other Essays (1979), containing the well-known "Bonfire Speech," which presents her thoughts on many feminist issues.
CRITICAL RECEPTION
Dinesen's writings have been widely praised and enthusiastically received. Seven Gothic Tales, her first collection, was released in the United States during the Great Depression, and audiences gravitated to Dinesen's mysterious, exotic, fantastical stories as a pleasurable escape from the dreariness of everyday life. In addition to noting her vivid imagination, critics have applauded her prose style, her facility with complicated plots and characters, and her natural gift for storytelling. While many scholars have claimed that her picture of Africa in Out of Africa is romanticized, they note that the story is engaging, well-structured, and presents a detailed picture of life among British expatriates in Africa. Several commentators have noted similarities between Dinesen's views on identity, spirituality, and meaning and those of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard; others have detected the influence of Aldous Huxley and Sigmund Freud on the development of Dinesen's themes and characters, particularly in such works as "Carnival."
Critics have noted that a number of Dinesen's stories reflect her admiration of the Gothic literature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Dinesen borrowed several elements of the Gothic tradition, writing fanciful tales of mysterious, suspenseful, supernatural happenings. Writing a century after the height of Gothic literature's popularity, she also modified Gothic conventions, informing her stories with a more liberal moral code than the earlier works. Critics have also noted a feminist sensibility in Dinesen's tales that was not evident in Gothic works of preceding centuries. Another difference between traditional Gothic literature and the works of Dinesen is the earlier authors' intent to frighten readers; Susan C. Brantly pointed out that "the supernatural for Dinesen simply represents freedom of the imagination."
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