Lost and Found in Translation: Dinesen, Andersen, and the Rhetoric of Virginity

Virginity is because it ends.

—Hanne Blank, Virgin: The Untouched History¹

"Where does one read a deeper tale than upon the most perfectly printed page of the most precious book? Upon the blank page" (Dinesen 1957, 100).² By way of this premonitory rhetoric, the old storyteller of Isak Dinesen's "The Blank Page" (1957) proceeds to tell a tale of an unstained bridal sheet and its profound narrative possibilities. In a convent perched high on a Portuguese mountain range, a sisterhood of Carmelite nuns grows "the finest flax and manufacture[s] the most exquisite linen of Portugal" (101). This linen is used to make bridal sheets for all the royal princesses, and the convent claims the privilege of "receiving back that central piece of the snow-white sheet which bore witness to the honor of a royal bride" (103). In this context, there is but one testament to the bride's honor: the stain of hymenal blood proving her virginity. But among all of these marked, cut-out sections of exquisite linen, which are dutifully framed and exhibited back at the convent, there hangs a single unstained piece, and it is before this "blank page" that the nuns "sink into deepest thought" (105). Similarly, it is before Dinesen's celebrated story that reading, interpretation, and translation reveal most acutely their myriad implications.

One of her final works of fiction, Dinesen's story can be read as a late poetic manifesto (Selboe 1996, 88). It was originally written in English, but while several translators attempted to render Dinesen's work in her native tongue, the author was ultimately dissatisfied with the results and took the task upon herself (Jones 1998, 45). Her approach to translation in general as well as the results of her efforts have been examined by a handful of critics, and the general consensus is that Dinesen rewrites her stories in Danish. One study describes her translations as "amplifications" that include richer vocabulary, increased specificity, and deeper explanation of concepts (Kure-Jensen 1993, 317). Other scholars focus primarily on details of language and conclude that whether in English or Danish, Dinesen has a tendency to code-switch and to rely extensively on danicisms and anglicisms (Sørensen 1981, 45–71; Bredsdorff 1985, 275–93). Whatever the case—and bearing in mind notable exceptions, such as Samuel Beckett, Milan Kundera, and Joseph Brodsky—it is unusual for authors to translate their own work and, therefore, striking that while "The Blank Page" has garnered much critical attention, none of it has engaged the issue of translation, which, I argue, also serves as the crux of the story.³

In Dinesen's frame tale, the outer narrative introduces the ancient storyteller, who then regales us with the inner tale of the convent, its bridal sheets, and the long-established nuptial traditions of the Portuguese nobility:

On the morning after the wedding of a daughter of the house, and before the morning gift had yet to be handed over, the Chamberlain or High Steward from the balcony of the palace would hang out the sheet of the night and would solemnly proclaim: Virginem eam tenemus—"we declare her to have been a virgin."

(1957, 102)

There is much to unpack in this pivotal scene, which appears dead center in the inner tale. To begin with, it is significant that this public moment of revelation, and not the private paroxysms of sexual intercourse, serves as the climax for the wedding night. Details of procedure also underscore the event's consequence. First, we are told that the morning gift is deliberately held back until the bride's virginity can be confirmed and publicly witnessed. Second, the "proclamation" itself is staged not merely as a social occasion, but as an event of political and national importance: it is played out upon the palace balcony, the customary locus of governmental—and especially royal—communication with the people. The bride's physical reputation, then, is ineluctably bound up with the body politic and national character.

If the conventional proving ground for a...