The Essential J.R.R. Tolkien Readings

The Quenta Silmarillion (English: Tale of the Silmarils) is an epic legendarium

of the Elder Days, preserved by the Faithful of Middle-Earth. It consists of twenty-four

chapters, telling the history of Arda from the beginning of days to the voyage of

Eärendil and the War of Wrath. Authorship is uncertain, though it is often falsely

attributed to the loremaster Pengoloð of Gondolin.^[1]

silmarillion #303649 - uludağ sözlük galeri

J.R.R. Tolkien Minimalist Bibliography

http://gregorywalter.blogspot.com/2014/02/jrr-tolkien-minimalist-bibliography.html

Dr. Gregory Walter

February 7, 2014

This is my shortlist and an essential guide to the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. I've decided to create this list because the various editions of Tolkien's work can be quite confusing, especially given the range of publications and even copyright scandals that Tolkien's work has experienced in the United States. There are a few works that at the moment only can be found in the UK but because they represent variations of Tolkien's books that cannot otherwise be found, I recommend them here. Also, I don't include links to booksellers because the information there can also get muddled.

The Essentials

1. The Lord of the Rings. 50th anniversary edition. 2005. paper. ISBN 978-0618640157

This is the edition to get. Forget picking up mass market paperback editions. Instead, you should find your way to this, the most accurate and essential edition of LOTR. Edited by W. Hammond and C. Scull, this edition finally corrects the text of tremendous error, provides corrected maps, and includes a full index. The introduction by D. Anderson tells the sorry history of the publication of the LOTR in the US. This version sets everything right. There are two higher grade bindings of this edition: I prefer the "deluxe edition" (ISBN 978-0544273443) which is better bound than the paper and more easily handled than the most expensive hardbound with slipcase (ISBN 978-0618517657)

2. The Hobbit. Cover by Peter Sis. 2001. Hardbound. ISBN 978-0618150823

There are other versions of the Hobbit available but this is the most readable and the most accessible to you and to younger Hobbits you may know. The 1973 hardbound with slipcase edition (ISBN 9780395177112) includes all of Tolkien's illustrations as well as the realization of his ideas for the cover illustrations. Interested readers of all of Tolkien's illustrations can find them collected in the excellent book The Art of the Hobbit, eds. W. Hammond and C. Skull (ISBN 978-0547928258).

3. The Silmarillion. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. 2nd. ed. Hardbound. ISBN 9780618135042

This is the book that Tolkien wanted to publish but never got to. Hobbits got in the way. Tolkien's unfinished writings on, in, and about Middle Earth exceed but include this fantastic book called the Silmarillion. This volume, edited by Tolkien's son Christopher Tolkien, includes the creation of Middle Earth (the amazing Ainulindale) and the downfall of the human civilization known as Numenor.

4. On Fairy Stories.

While planning a sequel to The Hobbit, Tolkien was invited to give a lecture about fairy stories. This essay was the result. It represents a significant reflection on aesthetics, ethics, and theology. It is essential to Tolkien. I love this essay so much it almost eclipses my love of the other writings!

The problem is that the best edition of this is unavailable in the US. Tree and Leaf (ISBN 9780007105045) contains the essay as well as the parallel poem on faerie "Mythopoeia." Older editions of this book can be found used but they are scarce. The cheapest way to get the essay is in the mass market paperback The Tolkien Reader (ISBN 9780345345066). You may find a better version of it included in the collection Tales from the Perilous Realm, 2008 (ISBN 9780547154114).

The Needful

5. History of Middle Earth (12 vols) and Unfinished Tales. Various editions.

You should only start reading these things until after you have read the appendices to LOTR and the entire Silmarillion. The History of Middle Earth and Unfinished Tales are collections of various manuscripts and writings of Tolkien some of which Christopher Tolkien edited to create the Silmarillion. This is hard to wade through but worth every effort.

6. Artist & Illustrator, eds. W. Hammond and C. Skull. 2000. Paper. ISBN 978-0618083619.

A fine collection of Tolkien's art that either land the ground for his writing or was intended to accompany it. Essential to pondering the interaction of his text and visual art.

7. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. H. Carpenter. 2001. Paper. ISBN 9780618056996

Reflections on the Hobbits, their economy of birthdays, among discussions of evil, the relationships of characters, theological speculation, and ordinary human laments make these letters indispensable for any reader of Tolkien.

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01:44:25

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Original audio here on Homebrewed Christianity

"The Hill of the Slain" by Ted Nasmith

Map of Middle-Earth by J.R.R. Tolkien

Beleriand and Realms of The North from The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. (Source: time-for-maps)

Eru Ilúvatar

Eru Ilúvatar

http://www.bythegods.net/post/19894572185

Alright! Today is Tolkien Day, so I’m gonna tell you all about Ilúvatar, the creative force/god analogue in the Lord of the Rings universe. In the Silmarillion, which is a compilation of ancient histories by the Elves, the creation of that world is written, as they understand it.

In the timeless void before the thought of life of any sort existed, Ilúvatar, the One, dwelt alone. He brought into being, through his thought, the Ainur: a countless multitude of angelic spirits. He gave them all free will and a wide range of abilities and talents, but their first great accomplishment was their music. Iluvatar bade the Ainur to make three great themes of music, and after it was performed, they discovered that their song contained an image of the world that was yet to be, as well as the fate of that world unfolding. This was called the Ainulindalë, or the Music of the Ainur.

With a word, Iluvatar commanded the world to be, and it was formed, though it was a chaos of swirling elements. Iluvatar encouraged those of the Ainur who were willing to go down into the world and help form it as they saw in the music, and many did. They each had their own loves, and gave thought to different areas of the world. Melkor, the mightiest of the Ainur, had created dischord in the Music, and went down into the world to destroy the work of the other Ainur, desiring to be its master. Ilúvatar had spoken to the Ainur, however, saying:

"Behold your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained herein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added. And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt percieve that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory."

At this point, Ilúvatar handed over the kingship of Arda (the world) to Manwë, the greatest of the Ainur spirits who went down into the world, save Melkor. He became the chief of the Valar: fourteen of the greatest Ainur who formed and oversaw the greatest portions of the world. Ilúvatar would not intervene until countless years later, after the Children of Ilúvatar (Elves and Men) had awoken.

Composite Map of Arda throughout the Ages

Side Projects - from Binding Obsession

http://bindingobsession.com/misc/

Tolkien graphics

The works of J.R.R. Tolkien are some of my favorites, but they can be a little difficult to get through at times. Inspired by my own forgetfulness and confusion, these visual aids are intended as basic references of names and terms appearing in Tolkien’s works, including (but not limited to) The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. Creating these has been a useful exercise for me, and I hope they will prove helpful to others, as well. Comments and corrections (preferably with citations of sources) are most welcome; these graphics have been researched, but only with materials I have on hand.

The Silmarillion: Overview

This graphic looks at some of the major players in Tolkien’s Silmarillion and attempts to organize them in such a way that makes their relationship to each other clear. The mythic beings are at the top, and Middle Earth’s inhabitants below.

http://bindingobsession.com/misc/

The Half-Elven Line

There are plenty of Lord of the Rings family trees, but I haven’t seen one for the Half-elven line that made it readily apparent which individuals are Elves, which are Half-elves, and which are men. That’s exactly what I’ve attempted to accomplish here. Note that this is not a complete family tree; only Half-elves and their direct ancestors are included.

http://bindingobsession.com/misc/

"Yavanna" - ladyelleth.deviantart.com

Yavanna

Yavanna [jaˈvanna] is Queen of the Earth and Giver of Fruits, spouse of Aulë, also called Kementári [kemenˈtaːri]. She created the Two Trees, and is responsible for the kelvar (animals) and olvar (plants). It was she who requested the creation of the Ents, as she feared for the safety of the trees once her husband had created the Dwarves. The Two Lamps are created by Aulë at Yavanna's request, and their light germinates the seeds that she had planted. Following the destruction of the Two Lamps by Melkor and the withdrawal of the Valar to Aman, Yavanna sang into being the Two Trees of Valinor.

"The Kindler" - ladyelleth.deviantart.com

The History of MiddleEarth - 

Wikipedia MiddleEarth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth

Archive:

365 Days of Middle-earth

http://tolkienbritta.blogspot.com/2011/06/365-days-of-middle-earth-archive.html

365 Days of Middle-earth

Day 45: The Two Trees of Valinor

and the Line of the White Trees

http://tolkienbritta.blogspot.com/2011/08/365-days-of-middle-earth-day-45-two.html

The Two Trees, White Telperion and Laurelin the Golden, were one of the greatest creations of the Valar. Also called the Two Trees of the Valar, the Trees of Valinor, the Trees of Silver and Gold, and the White Tree and Golden Tree.

Telperion

Q. ‘Silver–’ - Telperion (also called White Telperion, the White Tree, Ninquelótë, Silpion and other names, and Eldest of Trees) was the elder of the two trees, with leaves dark green above, and bright silver below, and a dew of light dripping from them. The stars of Varda were made from the dews of Telperion, and the Moon from his last silver flower. Galathilion and the line of the White Trees were images of Telperion, as was Turgon’s Belthil. It has been said that at the End, Telperion will reappear. 

Laurelin

Q. ‘Gold-song’ - Laurelin (also called Culúrien, Malinalda, the Golden Tree, the Tree of Gold, and other names) was the younger of the Two Trees, with bright green leaves edged with gold, golden-yellow horn-shaped flowers, and her dew a golden rain.

History of the Trees

The Two Trees were created Yavanna’s song of power and the tears of Nienna, and were born when Valinor was fully established, growing on Ezellohar, outside the western gates of Valmar. Their light reached far, illuminating Valinor, Eldamar, and Tol Eressëa. Varda collected their dews in great vats known as the Wells of Varda.

They inspired reverence and wonder in the Eldar, as the Silmarils of Fëanor, greatest creation of the Children of Ilúvatar, captured the light of the trees. Melkor coveted this light, and with the help of Ungoliant, he poisoned the trees, drained the Wells, and stole the Silmarils. While Yavanna and Nienna could not heal the trees, their last fruit and flower were taken by the Valar and fashioned into the Moon and Sun.

Galathilion and the line of the White Trees

S. ‘Tree-moon white’ - Galathilion (also called the White Tree, the Tree of Silver, the Tree of the High Elves, the Tree of Túna, and the Tree of Tirion) was the White Tree of the Eldar, made by Yavanna in the image of Telperion, though it did not shine. It produced many seedlings, one of them being Celeborn, which grew in Tol Eressëa and produced the seedlings of Nimloth.

Nimloth

S. ‘White blossom’ - Nimloth (also called Nimloth the Fair) was the White Tree of Númenor, given to Elros by the Eldar of Tol Eressëa. It grew in the King’s Court, but following the reign of Ar-Gimilzôr, the tree was unattended to and began to decline, until it was cut down by Ar-Pharazôn (at Sauron’s request) and burned on the altar of his Temple. Isildur, however, had stolen a single fruit of Nimloth, which bore the White Tree of Gondor, thus preserving the line of the White Trees.

First White Tree of Gondor

This tree, borne from a single fruit of Nimloth, which Isildur had recovered before the White Tree was destroyed, was planted in Minas Ithil before the house of Isildur. When Sauron returned to Middle-earth, he launched an attack on Minas Ithil, and destroyed the White Tree.

Second White Tree

When Isildur escaped the capture of Minas Ithil, he took with him a sapling of the White Tree, and planted it in the citadel courtyard of Minas Arnor, in memory of his slain brother Anárion. This tree died in 1636 during the Great Plague.

Third White Tree

King Tarondor planted another sapling in TA 1640. This tree lasted until the year 2872. By then, no seedling of the tree could be found, as it had rarely flowered after the line of the Kings had failed. So it was left standing until the return of the King.

Fourth White Tree

After Aragorn became King, he discovered a sapling of the White Tree on the slopes of Mindolluin, which he planted in the Court of the Fountain. The dead tree was placed in the Tombs of the King, and by June of TA 3019, the new sapling was already in blossom.

References

Fisher, M. (2008). Two Trees of Valinor. In Encyclopedia of Arda. Retrieved from http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/t/twotrees.html

Foster, R. (2001). In The complete guide to middle-earth: from the hobbit through the lord of the rings and beyond. New York: Del Rey.

Robert Browning - A Lover's Quarrel

A Lovers' Quarrel

I.

Oh, what a dawn of day!
How the March sun feels like May!
All is blue again
After last night's rain,
And the South dries the hawthorn-spray.
Only, my Love's away!
I'd as lief that the blue were grey,

II.

Runnels, which rillets swell,
Must be dancing down the dell,
With a foaming head
On the beryl bed
Paven smooth as a hermit's cell;
Each with a tale to tell,
Could my Love but attend as well.

III.

Dearest, three months ago!
When we lived blocked-up with snow,---
When the wind would edge
In and in his wedge,
In, as far as the point could go---
Not to our ingle, though,
Where we loved each the other so!

IV.

Laughs with so little cause!
We devised games out of straws.
We would try and trace
One another's face
In the ash, as an artist draws;
Free on each other's flaws,
How we chattered like two church daws!

V.

What's in the `Times''?---a scold
At the Emperor deep and cold;
He has taken a bride
To his gruesome side,
That's as fair as himself is bold:
There they sit ermine-stoled,
And she powders her hair with gold.

VI.

Fancy the Pampas' sheen!
Miles and miles of gold and green
Where the sunflowers blow
In a solid glow,
And---to break now and then the screen---
Black neck and eyeballs keen,
Up a wild horse leaps between!

VII.

Try, will our table turn?
Lay your hands there light, and yearn
Till the yearning slips
Thro' the finger-tips
In a fire which a few discern,
And a very few feel burn,
And the rest, they may live and learn!

VIII.

Then we would up and pace,
For a change, about the place,
Each with arm o'er neck:
'Tis our quarter-deck,
We are seamen in woeful case.
Help in the ocean-space!
Or, if no help, we'll embrace.

IX.

See, how she looks now, dressed
In a sledging-cap and vest!
'Tis a huge fur cloak---
Like a reindeer's yoke
Falls the lappet along the breast:
Sleeves for her arms to rest,
Or to hang, as my Love likes best.

X.

Teach me to flirt a fan
As the Spanish ladies can,
Or I tint your lip
With a burnt stick's tip
And you turn into such a man!
Just the two spots that span
Half the bill of the young male swan.

XI.

Dearest, three months ago
When the mesmerizer Snow
With his hand's first sweep
Put the earth to sleep:
'Twas a time when the heart could show
All---how was earth to know,
'Neath the mute hand's to-and-fro?

XII.

Dearest, three months ago
When we loved each other so,
Lived and loved the same
Till an evening came
When a shaft from the devil's bow
Pierced to our ingle-glow,
And the friends were friend and foe!

XIII.

Not from the heart beneath---
'Twas a bubble born of breath,
Neither sneer nor vaunt,
Nor reproach nor taunt.
See a word, how it severeth!
Oh, power of life and death
In the tongue, as the Preacher saith!

XIV.

Woman, and will you cast
For a word, quite off at last
Me, your own, your You,---
Since, as truth is true,
I was You all the happy past---
Me do you leave aghast
With the memories We amassed?

XV.

Love, if you knew the light
That your soul casts in my sight,
How I look to you
For the pure and true
And the beauteous and the right,---
Bear with a moment's spite
When a mere mote threats the white!

XVI.

What of a hasty word?
Is the fleshly heart not stirred
By a worm's pin-prick
Where its roots are quick?
See the eye, by a fly's foot blurred---
Ear, when a straw is heard
Scratch the brain's coat of curd!

XVII.

Foul be the world or fair
More or less, how can I care?
'Tis the world the same
For my praise or blame,
And endurance is easy there.
Wrong in the one thing rare---
Oh, it is hard to bear!

XVIII.

Here's the spring back or close,
When the almond-blossom blows:
We shall have the word
In a minor third
There is none but the cuckoo knows:
Heaps of the guelder-rose!
I must bear with it, I suppose.

XIX.

Could but November come,
Were the noisy birds struck dumb
At the warning slash
Of his driver's-lash---
I would laugh like the valiant Thumb
Facing the castle glum
And the giant's fee-faw-fum!

XX.

Then, were the world well stripped
Of the gear wherein equipped
We can stand apart,
Heart dispense with heart
In the sun, with the flowers unnipped,---
Oh, the world's hangings ripped,
We were both in a bare-walled crypt!

XXI.

Each in the crypt would cry
``But one freezes here! and why?
``When a heart, as chill,
``At my own would thrill
``Back to life, and its fires out-fly?
``Heart, shall we live or die?
``The rest. . . . settle by-and-by!''

XXII.

So, she'd efface the score,
And forgive me as before.
It is twelve o'clock:
I shall hear her knock
In the worst of a storm's uproar,
I shall pull her through the door,
I shall have her for evermore!

- Robert Browning, 1812-1889

Wikipedia Link to Poet - click here

PoemHunter Link to Poems - click here

R.E. Slater - Pockets Full of Sunshine (a poem)

Pockets Full of Sunshine

by R.E. Slater

Pockets full of sunshine,

Bursting all around,
Jeckel, Heckle,
We all fall down!

Hear the little fat bird,

Singing on the fence,

Chirping his dailies,

Plimp, plump, plamp!

Gaily we prance about,

Cheerily we sing,

Nothing and nonsense,

Every day and spring.

Hail him, flail her,

See how they run!

Following after,

The bright orbed sun!

Dimples and lashes,

Eyes full of rain,

Falling, falling,

Let laughter come.

Tra la, dee la, tra la, dee la,

Tra dum, tra dum, tra dum!
Hum red roses and daisies
Filling glad hearts with tunes.

Every day’s a new day,

Yesterday is past –

How do we catch the sun,

Holding firm and fast?

Rhymes and riddles,

Feiddle, Fidle, Fum,

Sticks and thimbles,

Seiddle, Sidle, Sum.

Rolling down the grassy hills,

Lying in the sun,

Listening to a summer’s day,

Humming golden tunes.

Shouting, seeking,

Beating all about,

Running, jumping,

School bell’s rung!

Quick! Let us run away,

Upon the dappled paths!

Hiding and seeking,

Within its willow’d stays!¹

Shouting, Singing,

All about the yards,

Crying, Calling,

All is well!

Hark! Bursts a yellow lark,
In breathless beat upon its wings!

Warbling o'er the bluing skies,

Flushed its grainy fields!

Displacing all somber thoughts,

Fled upon their pleasures,

Startling any wayward steps,

Lost upon their treasures.

Away we go across the fields,

Across the burning lanes,

Through the dales and o’er the hills,

Nothing lasts forever....

Till chanced upon a simple shrike,

To hear cajoling laughter –
Fly away, fly away,

Let all be done at last!

Once pondering steps,

Brimming wondering hopes,

Are dashed fair dreams' elixirs,

All mobling² streams' lost wander.

And nowhere lies the mocking jay,

All pleasant voices muted,

Nor gladden feet to daily strike,

Once sunny days and fields.

Dashes, Dashes,

Even stroke³ has come!

Curses, Curses,
Home we must run!


- R.E. Slater
January 28-29, 2014

¹draped willow branches brushing the earth

²shrouded, like a monk’s cloaked head
³gathering evening dusk

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved

Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) - Biography, Books, Background, Quotes & Sayings

More images of Karen Blixen here

''All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.''
- Isak Dinesen (1885-1962), Danish author.

As quoted in The Human Condition, Epigram, ch. 5, by Hannah Arendt (1958).

Karen Blixen / Isak Dinesen

Born in in Rungsted, Zealand, Denmark, April 17, 1885

Died, September 17, 1962

A Danish writer, who mixed in her work supernatural elements, aestheticism, and erotic undertones with an aristocratic view of life, Blixen always emphasized that she was a storyteller in the traditional, oral sense of the word. She drew her inspiration from the Bible, the Arabian Nights, the works of Homer, the Icelandic Sagas, and the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, who was her great fellow countryman. She wrote in English and in Danish. - GoodReads

Seven Gothic Tales

Seven Gothic Tales

Originally published in 1934, Seven Gothic Tales, the first book by "one of the finest and most singular artists of our time" (The Atlantic), is a modern classic. Here are seven exquisite tales combining the keen psychological insight characteristic of the modern short story with the haunting mystery of the nineteenth-century Gothic tale, in the tradition of writers such as Goethe, Hoffmann, and Poe.

Contents of Book

The Deluge at Norderney

The Old Cevalier
The Monkey
The Roads Round Pisa
The Supper at Elsinore
The Dreamers
The Poet

Out of Africa

Out of Africa

In this book, the author of Seven Gothic Tales gives a true account of her life on her plantation in Kenya. She tells with classic simplicity of the ways of the country and the natives: of the beauty of the Ngong Hills and coffee trees in blossom: of her guests, from the Prince of Wales to Knudsen, the old charcoal burner, who visited her: of primitive festivals: of big game that were her near neighbors--lions, rhinos, elephants, zebras, buffaloes--and of Lulu, the little gazelle who came to live with her, unbelievably ladylike and beautiful.

Amazon Link

Babette's Feast

"Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost." So writes Isak Dinesen in "Babette's Feast" as she spins a tale of friendship's ultimate sacrifice and the deepest values of life. In "Sorrow-Acre" Dinesen probes the heart of a mother who sows a field single-handedly in an attempt to save her son. These two complete stories echo Babette's plea with haunting poignancy.

Other Works by Karen Blixen (Source: Wikipedia)

Works by Karen Blixen on Open Library at the Internet Archive

Works about Karen Blixen in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Some of Blixen's works were published posthumously, including tales previously removed from earlier collections and essays she wrote for various occasions.

• The Hermits (1907, published in a Danish journal under the name Osceola)
• The Ploughman (1907, published in a Danish journal under the name Osceola)
• The de Cats Family (1909, published in Tilskueren)
• The Revenge of Truth (1926, published in Denmark)
• Seven Gothic Tales (1934 in USA, 1935 in Denmark)
• Out of Africa (1937 in Denmark and England, 1938 in USA)
• Winter's Tales (1942)
• The Angelic Avengers (1946)
• Last Tales (1957)
• Anecdotes of Destiny (1958) (including Babette's Feast)^[13]
• Shadows on the Grass (1960 in England and Denmark, 1961 in USA)
• Ehrengard (posthumous 1963, USA)
• Carnival: Entertainments and Posthumous Tales (posthumous 1977, USA)
• Daguerreotypes and Other Essays (posthumous 1979, USA)
• On Modern Marriage and Other Observations (posthumous 1986, USA)
• Letters from Africa, 1914–1931 (posthumous 1981, USA)
• Karen Blixen in Danmark: Breve 1931–1962 (posthumous 1996, Denmark)

Biography of Karen Blixen

Source: PoemHunter - http://www.poemhunter.com/karen-blixen/biography

Karen von Blixen-Finecke (17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962), née Karen Christenze Dinesen, was a Danish author also known by her pen name Isak Dinesen. She also wrote under the pen names Osceola and Pierre Andrézel. Blixen wrote works in Danish, French, and English.

Blixen is best known for Out of Africa, her account of living in Kenya, and one of her stories, Babette's Feast, both of which have been adapted into highly acclaimed, Academy Award-winning motion pictures. Prior to the release of the first film, she was noted for her Seven Gothic Tales, for which she is also known in Denmark.

Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, described it as "a mistake" that Blixen was not awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature during the 1930s. She never did win, though she finished in third place behind Graham Greene in 1961, the year Ivo Andrić was awarded the prize.


Biography of Karen Blixen
Source: Wikpedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Blixen

Karen von Blixen-Finecke (Danish: [kʰɑːɑn ˈb̥leɡ̊sn̩]; 17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962), née Karen Christenze Dinesen, was a Danish author also known by her pen name Isak Dinesen. She also wrote under the pen names Tania Blixen, Osceola and Pierre Andrézel. Blixen wrote works in Danish, French and English.

Blixen is best known for Out of Africa, her account of living in Kenya, and one of her stories, Babette's Feast, both of which have been adapted into highly acclaimed, Academy Award-winning motion pictures. Prior to the release of the first film, she was noted for her Seven Gothic Tales, for which she is also known in Denmark.

Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, described it as "a mistake" that Blixen was not awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature during the 1930s.^[1] Although never awarded the prize she finished in third place behind Graham Greene in 1961, the year Ivo Andrić was awarded the prize.^[2]

Early years

Mattrup Manor, 1861

Karen Dinesen was the daughter of writer and army officer Wilhelm Dinesen, and Ingeborg Westenholz, and was the sister of Thomas Dinesen. Her mother came from a wealthy Unitarian bourgeois merchant family. She spent her early years in the bourgeois environment of her mother's estate of Mattrup Manor near Horsens. She was later schooled in art in Copenhagen, Paris, and Rome.

She began publishing fiction in Danish periodicals in 1905 under the pseudonym Osceola. From August 1872 to December 1873, Wilhelm Dinesen had lived among the Chippewa Indians, in Wisconsin, where he fathered a daughter, who was born after his return to Denmark. Wilhelm Dinesen hanged himself in 1895, after being diagnosed with syphilis when Karen was ten.

Karen Blixen Museum, Narobi, Kenya

Life in Africa

In 1913 Karen Dinesen became engaged to her second-cousin, the Swedish Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, after a failed love affair with his brother. The couple moved to Kenya, where in early 1914 they used family money to establish a coffee plantation, hiring African workers, predominantly the Kikuyu tribes people who lived on the farmlands at the time of their arrival. About the couple's early life in Africa, Karen Blixen later wrote,

Here at long last one was in a position not to give a damn for all conventions, here was a new kind of freedom which until then one had only found in dreams!^[3]

The two were quite different in education and temperament, and Bror Blixen was unfaithful to his wife. She was diagnosed with syphilis toward the end of their first year of marriage. According to Dinesen's biographer Judith Thurman, there is reason to doubt that Bror Blixen was the cause. Although Dinesen's illness was eventually cured (some uncertainty exists), it created medical anguish for years afterward. The Blixens separated in 1921, and were divorced in 1925.

During her early years in Kenya, Karen Blixen met the English big game hunter Denys Finch Hatton, and after her separation she and Finch Hatton developed a close friendship which eventually became a long-term love affair. Finch Hatton used Blixen's farmhouse as a home base between 1926 and 1931, when he wasn't leading one of his clients on safari. He died in the crash of his de Havilland Gipsy Moth biplane in 1931. At the same time, the failure of the coffee plantation, as a result of the worldwide economic depression and the unsuitability of her farm's soil for coffee growing, forced Blixen to abandon her beloved farm. The family corporation sold the land to a residential developer, and Blixen returned to Denmark, where she lived for the rest of her life.

Life as a writer

Jurij Moskvitin (middle) acompaning Karen Blixen/ Isak Dinesen (right) meeting composer Igor Stravinskij (left) at the City Hall of Copenhagen, May 25, 2959

Jurij Moskvitin (middle) acompaning Karen Blixen/
Isak Dinesen (right) meeting composer Igor Stravinskij
(left) at the City Hall of Copenhagen, May 25, 2959

On returning to Denmark, Blixen began writing in earnest. Her first book, Seven Gothic Tales, was published in the US in 1934 under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen. This first book, highly enigmatic and more metaphoric than Gothic, won great recognition, and publication of the book in Great Britain and Denmark followed. Her second book, now the best known of her works, was Out of Africa, published in 1937, and its success firmly established her reputation as an author. She was awarded the Tagea Brandt Rejselegat (a Danish prize for women in the arts or academic life) in 1939.

During World War II, when Denmark was occupied by the Germans, Blixen started her only full-length novel, the introspective tale The Angelic Avengers, under another pseudonym, Pierre Andrezel; it was published in 1944. The horrors experienced by the young heroines were interpreted as an allegory of Nazism.

Her writing during most of the 1940s and 1950s consisted of tales in the storytelling tradition. The most famous is "Babette's Feast", about a chef who spends her entire 10,000-franc lottery prize to prepare a final, spectacular gourmet meal. The Immortal Story, was adapted to the screen in 1968 by Orson Welles, a great admirer of Blixen's work and life. Welles later attempted to film The Dreamers, but only a few scenes were ever completed.

Blixen's tales follow a traditional style of storytelling, and most take place against the background of the 19th century or earlier periods. Concerning her deliberately old-fashioned style, Blixen mentioned in several interviews that she wanted to express a spirit that no longer existed in modern times, that of destiny and courage. Indeed, many of her ideas can be traced back to those of Romanticism. Blixen's concept of the art of the story is perhaps most directly expressed in the story "The Cardinal's First Tale" from her fifth book, Last Tales.

Though Danish, Blixen wrote her books in English and then translated her work into her native tongue. Critics describe her English as having unusual beauty.^[who?] Her later books usually appeared simultaneously in both Danish and English. As an author, she kept her public image as a charismatic, mysterious old Baroness with an insightful third eye, and established herself as an inspiring figure in Danish culture, although shunning the mainstream.

Blixen was widely respected by contemporaries such as Ernest Hemingway and Truman Capote, and during her tour of the United States in 1959, writers who visited her included Arthur Miller, E. E. Cummings, and Pearl Buck. She also met actress Marilyn Monroe with her husband Arthur Miller. The socialite Babe Paley gave a lunch in her honour at St.Regis with Truman and Cecil Beaton as guests, and Gloria Vanderbilt gave her a dress by Mainbocher. The photographer Richard Avedon took one of his famous pictures of her during her stay in New York. She was admired by Cecil Beaton and the patron Pauline de Rothschild of the Rothschild family.

She was awarded the Danish Ingenio et Arti medal in 1950.^[4] In 2012, the Nobel records were opened after 50 years and it was revealed that Blixen was among a shortlist of authors considered for the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, along with John Steinbeck (winner), Robert Graves, Lawrence Durrell and Jean Anouilh.^[5] Blixen became ineligible after dying in September.^[5]

Karen Blixen's grave in Rungstedlund, Denmark

Illness and death

Although it was widely believed that syphilis continued to plague Blixen throughout her lifetime, extensive tests were unable to reveal evidence of syphilis in her system after 1925. Her writing prowess suggests that she did not suffer from the mental degeneration of late stages of syphilis, nor from cerebral poisoning due to mercury treatments. She did suffer a mild permanent loss of sensation in her legs that could be attributed to chronic use of arsenic in Africa.

Others attribute her weight loss and eventual death to anorexia nervosa.^[6]

During the 1950s Blixen's health quickly deteriorated, and in 1955 she had a third of her stomach removed because of an ulcer. Writing became impossible, although she did several radio broadcasts.

In her analysis of Blixen's medical history, Linda Donelson points out that Blixen wondered if her pain was psychosomatic even though she blamed it in public on the emotive syphilis: "Whatever her belief about her illness, the disease suited the artist's design for creating her own personal legend."^[7]

Unable to eat, Blixen died in 1962 at Rungstedlund, her family's estate, at the age of 77, apparently of malnutrition. The source of her abdominal problems remains unknown, although gastric syphilis, manifested by gastric ulcers during secondary and tertiary syphilis, was well-known prior to the advent of modern antibiotics.

Rungstedlund Museum

The Karen Blixen Museum in Rungstedlund, Denmark

Blixen lived most of her life at the family estate Rungstedlund, which was acquired by her father in 1879. The property is located in Rungsted, 24 kilometres (15 mi) north of Copenhagen, Denmark's capital. The oldest parts of the estate date to 1680, and it had been operated as both an inn and a farm. Most of Blixen's writing was done in Ewald's Room, named after author Johannes Ewald. The property is managed by the Rungstedlund Foundation, founded by Blixen and her siblings. It was opened to the public as a museum in 1991.

Legacy

The Nairobi suburb that stands on the land where Blixen farmed coffee is now named Karen. Blixen herself declared in her later writings that "the residential district of Karen" was "named after me".^[8] And Blixen's biographer, Judith Thurman, was told by the developer who bought the farm from the family corporation that he planned to name the district after Blixen.

Blixen was known to her friends not as "Karen" but as "Tania." The family corporation that owned her farm was incorporated as the "Karen Coffee Company". The chairman of the board was her uncle, Aage Westenholz,^[9] who may have named the company after his own daughter Karen. However, the developer seems to have named the district after its famous author/farmer rather than the name of her company.

There is a Karen Blixen Coffee House and Museum in the district of Karen, located near Blixen's former home.

Karen Blixen's portrait was featured on the front of the Danish 50-krone banknote, 1997 series, from 7 May 1999 to 25 August 2005.^[10][11]

Family

Blixen's great-nephew, Anders Westenholz, was also an accomplished writer, and has written books about her and her literature, among other things.

Karen Blixen was also, in addition to being depicted on a Danish banknote, featured on a Danish postage stamp that was issued in 1980.

   

Out of Africa Movie Poems

http://www.karenblixen.com/moviepoems.html

The screenwriter, Kurt Luedtke, included the following fragments of poems

in his Academy Award-winning filmscript from 1985.

Scene: Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford) washing Karen Blixen's (Meryl Streep's)

hair on safari:

From THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

(Note: Denys Finch Hatton loved this poem. The lines "He prayeth well, who loveth well /Both man and bird and beast" appear on commemorative brass plaques, once placed by Denys Finch Hatton's brother Toby on the obelisk at Denys's tomb in the Ngong Hills, and still found in Ewerby Church, Lincolnshire, England. In the flyleaf of the copy of the poem owned by Karen Blixen, Denys drew a picture of a rhinoceros. This drawing is reproduced in Isak Dinesen's Letters from Africa, page 140.)

... Laughed loud and long, and all the while

His eyes went to and fro.

Ha, ha, quoth he, full plain I see

The Devil knows how to row.

Farewell, farewell, but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding Guest:

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast."

Scene: At Denys's grave:

From A SHROPSHIRE LAD: XIX TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG

by A. E. Housman (1859-1936).

"The time you won your town the race

We cheered you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high...

Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose...

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honours out,

Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man...

And round that early-laurelled head

Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,

And find unwithered on its curls

The garland briefer than a girl's."

(Note: A play, "The Invention of Love" by Tom Stoppard, examines the life of A. E. Housman. The play opened in London in 1998 and in Philadelphia in February, 2000.) The (fictional) script written for the movie gives Meryl Streep the further comments:

"Now take back the soul

of Denys George Finch Hatton,

whom You have shared with us.

He brought us joy...

we loved him well.

He was not ours.

He was not mine."

Scene: Karen leaving the farm for good:

From Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (1885-1962), chapter titled "Kamante and Lulu," page 83:

"If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?"

Scene: "Rose-lipped maidens"

The line "Rose-lipped maidens" appears when Meryl Streep is offered a drink in the Muthaiga Club near the end of the movie, and also before the seduction scene on safari. The following poem was set to music by Samuel Barber (1910-1931).

A. E. Housman (1859-1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896.

LIV. With rue my heart is laden

WITH rue my heart is laden

For golden friends I had,

For many a rose-lipt maiden

And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping 

The lightfoot boys are laid;

the rose-lipt girls are sleeping

In fields where roses fade.

Karen Blixen / Isak Dinesen

Quotes

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/4480096.Isak_Dinesen

“The cure for anything is salt water - tears, sweat, or the sea.”

- Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales

“When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.”

- Isak Dinesen

“Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road.”

- Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“To be a person is to have a story to tell.”

- Isak Dinesen

“If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?”

- Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“All sorrows can be born if you put them in a story or tell a story about them.”

- Isak Dinesen

“Here I am, where I am supposed to be.”

- Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“There was a place in the Hills, on the first ridge in the Game Reserve, that I myself at the time when I thought that I was to live and die in Africa, had pointed out to Denys as my future burial-place. In the evening, while we sat and looked at the hills from my house, he remarked that then he would like to be buried there himself as well. Since then, sometimes when we drove out in the hills, Denys had said: "Let us drive as far as our graves.”

- Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“The entire being of a woman is a secret which should be kept.”

- Isak Dinesen

“I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.”

- Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“I don't think...

one gets a flash of happiness once,

and never again;

it is there deep within you...”

- Isak Dinesen

“You must not think that I feel, in spite of it having ended in such defeat, that my "life has been wasted" here, or that I would exchange it with that of anyone I know.”

- Isak Dinesen

“But by the time that I had nothing left, I myself was the lightest thing of all for fate to get rid of.” 

- Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“Where the storyteller is loyal, eternally and unswervingly loyal to the story, there, in the end, silence will speak. Where the story has been betrayed, silence is but emptiness. But we, the faithful, when we have spoken our last word, will hear the voice of silence.”

- Isak Dinesen

“All sorrows can be borne if we put them in a story or tell a story about them.”

- Isak Dinesen

“Alas! as I have lived I have lost the capacity of fear. When you know what things are really like, you can make no poems about them. When you have had talk with ghosts and connections with the devils you are, in the end, more afraid of your creditors than of them; and when you have been made a cuckold you are no longer nervous about cuckoldry. I have become too familiar with life; it can no longer delude me into believing that one thing is much worse than the other. The day and the dark, an enemy and a friend—I know them to be about the same. How can you make others afraid when you have forgotten fear yourself? I once had a really tragic tale, a great tale, full of agony, immensely popular, of a young man who in the end had his nose and his ears cut off. Now I could frighten no one with it, if I wanted to, for now I know that to be without them is not so very much worse than to have them. This is why you see me here, skin and bone, and dressed in old rags instead of keeping near the thrones of the mighty, flourishing and flattered, as was when I was young.”

- Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales

“I remember an old Danish bishop’s saying to me that there are many ways to the recognition of truth, and that Burgundy is one of them.”

- Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales

“The air was cold to the lungs, the long grass dripping wet, and the herbs on it gave out their spiced astringent scent. In a little while on all sides the Cicada would begin to sing. The grass was me , and the air, the distant invisible mountains were me, the tired oxen were me. I breathed with the slight night-wind in the thorn trees.”

- Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“I had a farm in Africa.”

- Isak Dinesen

“It is terrible and unbearable to an artist,' he said, 'to be encouraged to do, to be applauded for doing his second best.' He said: 'Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost!”

- Isak Dinesen, Babette's Feast

“People love to be frightened. The great princes, fed up with the sweets of life, wished to have their blood stirred again. The honest ladies, to whom nothing ever happened, longed to tremble in their beds just for once. The dancers were inspired to a lighter pace by tales of flight and pursuit.”

- Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales

“In those days I had various strong inclinations, for wine, gambling and cockfighting, and the society of gypsies, together with a passion for theological discussion which I had inherited from my father himself—all of which my father thought I had better rid myself of before I married.”

- Isak Dinesen

“At times I believe that my feet have been set upon a road which I shall go on following, and that slowly the centre of gravity of my being will shift over from the world of day, from the domain of organizing and regulating universal powers, into the world of Imagination. Already now I feel...that day is a space of time without meaning, and that it is with the coming of dusk, with the lighting of the first star and the first candle, that things will become what they really are, and will come forth to meet me.”

- Isak Dinesen, Shadows On The Grass

“Emmanuelson said good-bye to me; he started to walk, and then came back and said good-bye once more. I sat in the car and watched him, and I think that as he went he was pleased to have a spectator. I believe that the dramatic instinct within him was so strong that he was at this moment vividly aware of being leaving the stage, of disappearing, as if he had, with the eyes of his audience, seen himself go. Exit Emmanuelson. Should not the hills, the thorn-trees and the dusty road take pity and for a second put on the aspect of cardboard?”

- Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

“What is life when you come to think upon it, but a most excellent, accurately set, infinitely complicated machine for turning fat playful puppies into old mangy blind dogs, and proud war horses into skinny nags, and succulent young boys, to whom the world holds great delights and terrors, into old weak men, with running eyes, who drink ground rhino-horn?”

- Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales

“What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning, with infinite artfulness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine? You may even ask which is the more intense craving and pleasure: to drink or to make water. But in the meantime, what has been done? A song has been composed, a kiss taken, a slanderer slain, a prophet begotten, a righteous judgment given, a joke made. The world drank in the young story-teller Mira. He went to its head, he ran in its veins, he made it glow with warmth and color. Now I am on my way down a little; the effect has worn off. The world will soon be equally pleased to piss me out again, and I do not know but that I am pressing on a little myself. But the tales which I made—they shall last.”

- Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales

“I felt that Paris was illuminated by a splendor possessed by no other places.”

- Isak Dinesen, Letters from Africa, 1914-1931

“Man, my friends,is frail and foolish. We have all of us been told that grace is to be found in the universe. But in our human foolishness and short-sightedness we imagine divine grace to be finite. For this reason we tremble. We tremble before making our choice in life, and after having made it again tremble in fear of having chosen wrong. But the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude. Grace, brothers, makes no conditions and singles out none of us in particular; grace takes us all to its bosom and proclaims general amnesty. See! that which we have chosen is given us, and that which we have refused is, also and at the same time, granted us. Ay, that which we have rejected is poured upon us abundantly. For mercy and truth have met together, and righteousness and bliss have kissed one another!”

- Isak Dinesen, Babette's Feast

“It is a good thing to be a great sinner. Or should human beings allow Christ to have died on the Cross for the sake of our petty lies and our paltry whorings”

- Isak Dinesen

“If Miss Malin had now been given the choice of returning to her former reasonable state, and had been capable of realizing the meaning of the offer, she might have declined it on the ground that you have in reality more fun out of life when a little off your head.”

- Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales

“You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions.”
- Karen Blixen, Out of Africa

*For more quotes and saying go here to GoodReads