SOURCE: Hansen, Frantz Leander. “Karen Blixen's Works.” In The Aristocratic Universe of Karen Blixen: Destiny and the Denial of Fate, translated by Gaye Kynoch, pp. 20-38. Brighton, England: Sussex Academic Press, 2003.

In the following excerpt, Hansen provides a thematic and stylistic overview of several of Dinesen's stories.

Aristocratic Conduct of Life and Bourgeois Lifelessness

Winter's Tales

Shortly after finishing Out of Africa, Karen Blixen began writing Winter's Tales, which was published in 1942. The title is taken from Shakespeare's play The Winter's Tale (1611), but undoubtedly also refers to the wintry conditions in Denmark during World War II. Of all Karen Blixen's books, Winter's Tales is the one that is most concerned with Danish subjects.

Thus the tale “Sorrow-Acre” is based on an old Danish legend of the same name and takes place on a country estate in Denmark around the year 1780. With his modern, liberal and humane ideas, the...