SOURCE: Sanders, Karin. “Nemesis of Mimesis: The Problem of Representation in H. C. Andersen's ‘Psychen.¹’” Scandinavian Studies 64, no. 1 (1992): 1-25.

In the following essay, Sanders investigates how the art of sculpture subverts understandings of gender markings in Andersen's tale “Psychen.”

“Pip! Det er det Skønne!”(2) 

During his impressionable first visit to Rome in 1833-1834, Hans Christian Andersen observed the digging of a grave for a young nun who had just died. In the grave a statue of Bacchus was unearthed. Nearly thirty years later, in 1861, this memory was transformed or “translated” to “Psychen.” The “translation” of Bacchus to Psyche seems to have caused the author considerable problems but manages nonetheless to raise some significant questions concerning the nature of art and immortality, of mimesis and (gender) identity. The conspicuous disparity between Psyche, Greek Goddess of the spirit, and Bacchus, Roman God of wine, invites the reader to look...