"I have always thought that I would have cut a figure at the time of the plague of Florence." This quotation from Out of Africa … suggests the kind of role that Isak Dinesen has conceived for herself. Like Selma Lagerlöf, who liked to regard her audience as children listening to stories, Isak Dinesen has always imagined herself in the classic role of the storyteller, as a modern Scheherazade. Her tales are so imbued with the spirit of storytelling that one might venture to assert that the basic theme running through them all is, in fact, the storyteller's defense of the art of the story. (p. 8)
[If] one were to single out the work that has meant the most to Isak Dinesen, it would undoubtedly be the Arabian Nights. Dinesen's tales are replete with allusions to this book, and she often employs the exotic Orient as the setting for her tales. Haroun al Raschid is often referred to: his habit of masquerading has appealed to the imagination of a writer who loves to cultivate this histrionic habit. The philosophy of Islam with its emphasis on acceptance seems to have influenced Dinesen profoundly. In Africa, on the farm [where she lived for many years], the people about her must have seemed like some of the figures in the Arabian Nights, and their attitudes to life, for which she expresses great understanding, like those of faithful Mohammedans.
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