Karen Blixen. The Devil's Advocate Reading Blixen in the Light of Kierkegaard Bunch, Mads Publication date: 2013 Document version Tidlig version også kaldet pre-print Citation for published version (APA): Bunch, M. (2013). Karen Blixen. The Devil's Advocate: Reading Blixen in the Light of Kierkegaard. Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet. Download date: 25. sep.. 2021 FACULTY OF HUMANITIES UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN PhD thesis Mads Bunch Karen Blixen. The Devil’s Advocate - Reading Blixen in the Light of Kierkegaard Academic advisor: Poul Behrendt Submitted: 22/8/2013 Institut for Nordiske Studier og Sprogvidenskab / Department of Scandinavian Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword 1 Thanks 3 Introduction 3 1. RESEARCH SURVEY: THE BLIXEN-KIERKEGAARD SCHOLARSHIP 7 1934-1969 7 1970-1994 13 1995-2013 17 The New Perspectives 20 2. THE EXTRATEXTUAL CONNECTIONS 33 Kierkegaard in Blixen’s Library at Rungstedlund 34 Other Works about Kierkegaard Known to Blixen 35 Conclusion: Extratextual Connections to Kierkegaard 39 Humor or Irony? 40 3. CHRISTIANITY: BLIXEN AND KIERKEGAARD 42 Early Critique of Christianity 43 Sandhedens Hævn 46 The Gospel of Nature and Joy 49 The Marionette Motive 51 Nature and the Poet as God 55 Early Nemesis: Truth as the Nemesis of the Lie 57 The Concept of Christi-Anxiety 59 “En Historie om en Perle” 61 Christianity is just a Sign: “Clothes Mangled Here” 68 Intermezzo 69 4. “CARNIVAL” Flappers and Macabre Dandies: Karen Blixen’s “Carnival” in the light of Søren Kierkegaard (Bunch 2011). 69 “Carnival”: Theoretical and Methodical Reflections 107 “Carnival”: Additional Observations 108 Annelise and Kierkegaard’s “det unge Menneske” 108 The Shadow as Conscience and Guilt 111 5. “EHRENGARD” 115 “Ehrengard,” Kierkegaard, and the Secret Note” (Bunch 2013a) 116 “Ehrengard”: Theoretical and Methodical Reflections 165 The “Chinese Puzzle” as a Composition Principle 166 Unreliable Observer Narration and Ambiguous Discourse (AD) in ”Ehrengard” 169 ”Ehrengard”: Additional Observations 175 Kierkegaard’s Secret Note 175 6. “THE POET” / “DIGTEREN” 178 Karen Blixen’s “The Poet” and Søren Kierkegaard’s Gjentagelsen (Bunch 2013b) 179 “The Poet”: Additional Observations 200 “The Poet”: Theoretical and Methodical Reflections 200 Dialectics of Repetition in Blixen 201 “Babettes Gæstebud”: Repetition and Nemesis of the Aesthetical 203 Conclusion: Blixen and Repetition 209 7. GENDER: BLIXEN AND KIERKEGAARD 210 “Drømmerne”: Don Juan, Pellegrina and Seduction 211 Baron Gyldenstierne as a Comical Don Juan 212 The Male Characters as Parodies of the three “umiddelbare erotiske Stadier” 214 Don Juan Seduced 216 Pellegrina as the Materialistic, Female Embodiment of Music 217 Pellegrina as a Tragic Female Don Juan 217 “Drømmerne” and Don Juan: Tradition and Repetition 219 Woman: God(dess) of Man 220 Woman: Man’s Paradise on Earth 226 Lucifer. Masculinity Internalized: Heksen and Jomfru Maria. 227 8. CONCLUSION 229 Blixen. An Ethical Aesthete 229 Gender and Nemesis 230 Danish Summary 233 Works Cited 234 Karen Blixen. The Devil’s Advocate - Reading Blixen in the Light of Kierkegaard Foreword This thesis falls into the category of an article Ph.D. This means that it consists of three articles and a background section. At the time of writing1 the first article “Flappers and Macabre Dandies. Karen Blixen’s ‘Carnival’ in the Light of Søren Kierkegaard” has been published in the journal Scandinavica (2:2011), the second “‘Ehrengard,’ Kierkegaard, and the Secret Note” has been accepted by the journal Scandinavian Studies and is scheduled to appear in the winter 2013 issue and the third “Karen Blixen’s ‘The Poet’ and Søren Kierkegaard’s Gjentagelsen” has been submitted to the European Journal of Scandinavian Studies but has not yet been peer reviewed.2 The three articles are framed by a background section that consists of 1) a research survey of the Blixen-Kierkegaard research scholarship, 2) reflections over the theory and method used in each of the three articles and 3) additional analyses of selected tales by Blixen with particular attention to Kierkegaard and the topics of gender and Christianity and finally 4) a concluding chapter that ties the observations from the articles and the background section together. This means that the form of the thesis is more similar to that of a monograph, but as the thesis unfolds it should be clear, why this format has been necessary in order to supplement and develop the observations made in the articles and make a final conclusion about Blixen and Kierkegaard that takes both articles and the additional analyses into account. The downfall is, however, that it has been impossible to avoid the re-use of quotes and ideas presented in the articles in the background section, which is causing some redundancy. I hope it will not disturb the reading too much. All Kierkegaard quotations are from the online version of Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter: www.sks.dk. In the background section the references to Kierkegaard’s works will not have any page references (n. pag.) since the works are online and do not have page numbers. All Kierkegaard quotes can, however, easily be checked in the online version by pasting text from the quotes into the search box on the 1 August 20, 2013. 2 All these journals belong to the highest ranked academic category (category 2) according to the latest Danish ranking list: ”Autoritetslisten for serier 2012 og 2013”: http://fivu.dk/forskning-og- innovation/statistik-og-analyser/den-bibliometriske-forskningsindikator/autoritetslister 1 website. With regard to Blixen, I have decided to use the Danish versions of her works in the background section following the observations made by Poul Behrendt about the English and Danish versions with regard to Vinter-Eventyr (1942). Behrendt shows that Blixen in her Danish reworkings of the tales developed ideas from the English texts and added or reinforced allusions to Danish writers from the 19th century in order to cater to her Danish audience (Behrendt 2010a, 406). This also pertains to allusions to Søren Kierkegaard, as I show in the third article about “The Poet” from Seven Gothic Tales (1934) / “Digteren” from Syv fantastiske Fortællinger (1935), but in the first two articles about “Carnival” and “Ehrengard” I only use the English versions since Blixen never had a chance to translate and rework the tales into Danish herself (it was done posthumously by Clara Selborn in 1963 and 1975). Even though this background section is written in English, none of the Danish quotes from Kierkegaard or Blixen’s works (including the letters) are translated into English,3 since I presuppose that the review committee and other readers on this academic level are able to read and understand Danish, but also in order to not exceed the maximum limit of 100.000 words. If the italics in the quotes are mine, I will note it in the parenthesis after the quote as “author’s italics,” otherwise the italics are original. When I refer to my own articles in the thesis I use the page number of the article as it was submitted to (or printed by) the journal (see page numbers to the left or right), but I have also numbered the articles with a second page number (in the middle of the page), so each page also fits the running text of the thesis in its final form. The articles each follow the specific formatting style of the journal it was submitted to, but in the background section I have chosen to use the Chicago Manual of Style as the reference format. This thesis consists of about 85.000 words (without the works cited list); the three articles account for approximately 36.000 words and the background section for the rest. The English part of thesis is followed by a one-page summary in Danish. 3 In the three articles the Danish quotes are, however, followed by English translations due to the requirements of the journals. 2 Thanks Many people have been helpful and supportive throughout the five years it has taken to complete this work. I would like to give a very special thanks to my supervisor and mentor Poul Behrendt for his tireless feedback on the work presented in this thesis and for everything I have learned from him during many profound and deeply inspiring conversations. I would also like to give a special thanks to my family, who have all been a great help and supportive, especially in the final year of writing. Big thanks also goes to Ivan Ž. Sørensen for feedback on earlier drafts of this work and for kindly giving me access to his material about Blixen and Kierkegaard. Thanks also to Marianne Wirenfeldt Asmussen for giving me access to the Karen Blixen Archive at The Royal Library in Copenhagen, to Marianne Juhl for valuable information about the letters concerning Kierkegaard in the new 2013 edition of Blixen’s letters (Blixen 2013), to Bruno Svindborg at Håndskriftssamlingen at The Royal Library and to Anne Sophie Tiedemann Dal and Cathrine Lefebre at Rungstedlund Museet for giving me access to Karen Blixen’s library and for their general interest and support for my work. Also big thanks to the “Lektoratsudvalget” that financed this Ph.D. and the chair Nina Møller Andersen for her great effort to make bureaucracy work in my favor when I returned to Denmark from Canada in 2011. Thanks also to John E. Andersen from Institut for Nordiske Studier og Sprogvidenskab (INSS) for office space and for supporting overseas conference participation in 2013 where I was able to present the last parts of this work and to Sune Auken and Toke Nordbo at the Ph.D. office for their help and support throughout the process. As a non-native speaker writing in English I would like to dedicate a special thanks to Brin Friesen, Mark Mussari and J.