SOURCE: "Isak Dinesen, Søren Kierkegaard, and the Present Age," in Books Abroad, Vol. 36, No. 1, Winter, 1962, pp. 20-4.

In the following essay, Johannesson examines the similarities between the philosophical views expressed in many of Dinesen's works and those of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, notably themes relating to human identity, human interdependence, and passion for life.

To compare Isak Dinesen and Søren Kierkegaard may seem a rather frivolous undertaking particularly to those who see in the former a sophisticated and witty Danish Baroness who likes to tell decadent and bizarre tales about a bygone era or produce elegiac memorials to a vanished Africa. The world of Isak Dinesen whose stories grace the pages of Harper's Bazaar and Ladies Home Journal and whose histrionic face peers at us in Life magazine seems far removed from that of Søren Kierkegaard, whose efforts to reawaken the individual to a...