SOURCE: "Karen Blixen's 'Carnival,'" in Scandinavica, Vol. 22, No. 2, November, 1983, pp. 159-70.

In the following essay on the short story "Carnival," the critics examine Dinesen's literary style, characters, and use of fantasy, while exploring the themes of aristocratic life and the role of the artist. They also discuss the influence of Aldous Huxley, Sigmund Freud, Edgar Allan Poe, Guy de Maupassant, and E. T. A. Hoffman on Dinesen's work.

'Carnival', which is among the most recently published of Karen Blixen's tales, dates from the 1920s—presumably around 1926, just after she had completed the shorter marionette comedy entitled Sandhedens Hævn. Originally, 'Carnival' too, was planned as a marionette comedy. The comedy was rewritten as a tale and was intended to be included in a collection to be entitled 'Nine Tales by Nozdref's Cook', which contained the material for Seven Gothic Tales (1933). In 1961, the year before Karen Blixen's death...