The creative dialectic in Karen Blixen's essays : on gender, Nazi Germany, and colonial desire / Marianne T. Stecher.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stecher-Hansen, Marianne, 1957- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Blixen, Karen, 1885-1962--Criticism and interpretation.

Blixen, Karen.

Dinesen, Isak, 1885-1962--Criticism and interpretation.

Dinesen, Isak.

Dinesen, Isak, 1885-1962.

Blixen, Karen, 1885-1962.

Dialectic in literature.

Essay.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

276 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Copenhagen S, Denmark : Museum Tusculanum Press, 2014.

Summary:

"Best known for her fiction, including 'Out of Africa' and 'Babette's Feast', Karen Blixen - often writing under the name Isak Dinesen - was an iconic figure in Scandinavia and the Anglo-American world. Many of her topical pieces would later be published as essays, and in this book Marianne T. Stecher offers the first critical examination of them, exploring Blixen's sagacious reflections on some of the twentieth century's greatest challenges. Stecher uncovers a "creative dialectic" in Blixen's work, an interplay of complementary opposites that Blixen saw as fundamental to human life and artistic creativity. Whether exploring questions of gender and the status of the feminist movement in the middle of the twentieth century, the reign of National Socialism in Hitler's Germany, or colonial race relations under British rule in East Africa, Blixen drew on a dialectical method to offer insightful, witty, and surprisingly progressive observations."--Back cover.

Contents:

Part 1 25

On Feminism and Womanliness in "Oration at a Bonfire" and "The Blank Page" 27

Blixen's Feminism and Feminist Criticism 32

Reading "Oration at a Bonfire"-Rethinking Feminism 39

The Bonfire Oration in Dialogue with Ortega y Gasset 55

Feminine Attire-Essence and Construction 59

Blixen's Entreaty to Postwar Feminists 61

Women and History-From Gender to Existence 67

Womanly Essence and "The Blank Page" 76

Part 2 91

On Nazism as a "One-Sexed Community" in "Letters from a Land at War" 93

A Soldier's Daughter and the Warrior Ethos 95

Hitler's Magnetism and Invitations to Germany 100

Investigating the Original Typescripts 107

Blixen Criticism, the Wvel Debate, and the Heretics 111

"The Foreword"-The Narrative Strategy of Neutrality 119

"An Old Hero in Bremen"-The Chivalrous Enemy 122

"Great Undertakings in Berlin"-The New German Religion 126

"Strength and Joy"-The Gospel of the Will to Power 134

"The Stage"-Art or Propaganda 140

Postwar Reflections-Two Kinds of Courage 146

Part 3 153

On Colonial Desire in "Blacks and Whites in Africa," Out of Africa, and Shadows on the Grass 155

Venerable Artifacts of the Colonial Past 156

Ambivalence and Mimicry in Out of Africa and "Farah" 162

Colonial Denmark, Postcolonial Criticism, and Blixen's Legacy 170

"Blacks and Whites in Africa"-Colonial Power as Illusion 182

"Kitosch's Story"-White Prestige 195

"Farah"-Affectionate Paternalism in the Master/Slave Dialectic 203

"Barua a Soldani"-Desire, Gift, and Sacrifice 208.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

8763540614

9788763540612

OCLC:

859645443

Publisher Number:

99959156494