The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen

by Hans Christian Andersen

  30. the bird’s gray wings turned white and spread out. The transformation from gray to white repeats what happened to the ugly duckling, who turns from a blackgray hue to white.

  31. the children cried out when they saw the white bird. As in “The Ugly Duckling,” children are the first to take note of an avian creature that is striking because of its whiteness. “The Emperor’s New Clothes” also ends with a child calling the attention of adults to another shock effect, this time of nakedness rather than of beauty.

  32. They say that it flew straight into the sun. The sun, invariably associated with warmth and with salvation, signals Inger’s redemption.

  The Phoenix

  Fugl Phønix

  Digterens danske Værker, 1850

  “The Phoenix” is the most lyrical of Andersen’s tales. Eulogizing the bird of paradise, it combines biblical narratives with Scandinavian lore and ancient mythologies to construct an aesthetic in which beauty constantly renews itself in bursts of cataclysmic destruction. Nature becomes the model for an art that pulses with organic vitality and the promise of metamorphosis and rebirth. Ducks, swans, sparrows, storks, butterflies, and other ordinary winged creatures perpetually find their way into Andersen’s narratives. Sometimes they enact fables about human behavior, sometimes they encounter humans to offer wisdom, direction, or assistance, and frequently they incarnate the human soul in flight. The phoenix, with its glorious color and song, rises above the ordinary to serve as the model for an art that will never perish, even as it repeatedly goes up in flames. That winged creature has inspired one critic to refer to Andersen’s art as governed by “the phoenix principle,” a profound faith in the power of art to endure beyond its material existence.

  Beneath the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden,1 a rosebush was growing. From its first blossom, a bird was born, with beautiful plumage, glorious colors, and an enchanting song.

  When Eve plucked fruit from the tree of knowledge, she and Adam were driven from Eden, and a spark flew from the flaming sword of the angel into the bird’s nest and set it on fire. The bird perished in the flames, but a new bird arose from the egg glowing in the nest, the only one of its kind, the peerless phoenix. Legend tells us that it comes from Arabia2 and that it sets itself on fire every hundred years. But almost at once a new phoenix, the only one in the entire world, flies out from the egg glowing in the nest.

  The bird darts around us as swiftly as light. Its colors are glorious, and its wondrous song captivates us. When a mother sits by a cradle, it flits around the pillow, creating a halo around the infant’s head. It flies through a shabby parlor, spreading sunshine, and suddenly a humble cupboard smells of violets.

  The phoenix is not native to Arabia alone. In the glimmer of the Northern lights, it soars over the icy plains of Lapland and hops about amid the yellow flowers in Greenland’s brief summer. It can be seen beneath the copper mountains of Falun3 as well as in England’s coal mines. It hovers like a powdery moth above the hymnal resting in the hands of a pious miner. It floats down the sacred waters of the Ganges on a lotus leaf, and the eyes of Hindu maidens brighten when they behold it.

  VILHELM PEDERSON

  The phoenix! I’m sure you know it. It is the bird of Eden, the blessed swan of song. It was seated in the carriage of Thespis4 and sat back there like a chattering raven, flapping its gutter-stained black wings. The swan’s red beak, resounding with song, swept over the harps of Iceland’s bards. It sat on Shakespeare’s shoulders, looking like Odin’s raven,5 and whispered the word “immortality” in his ear. At the minstrels’ contest, it fluttered through the halls of the Wartburg.6

  The phoenix! I’m sure you know it. It sang the “Marseillaise” to you,7 and you kissed the feather that dropped from its wing. It landed in all the glory of paradise, but perhaps you turned away to look at the sparrow perched before you with gold-tipped wings.

  Oh bird of paradise, renewed with each new century, you are born in flames and die in flames. Framed in gold, your portrait adorns the halls of the wealthy, yet you yourself soar through the air and off course, nothing but a myth. The phoenix of Arabia!

  When you were born beneath the tree of knowledge as the first rose in the Garden of Eden, God kissed you and gave you your proper name: Poetry.

  1. Beneath the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. The rosebush growing in Eden is Andersen’s invention, but he remains otherwise faithful to the biblical story. The angel with the flaming sword is described in Genesis 3:24: “After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.”

  2. Legend tells us that it comes from Arabia. The phoenix is associated in many cultures with death, resurrection, and immortality. In ancient Egyptian myths, the phoenix was a male bird with gold and red plumage. At the end of its life span (the exact number of centuries varies), it was said to build a nest of sweet-smelling wood, to which it set fire. From the ashes of the phoenix arose a young new bird. The new phoenix took the ashes of the old and made of them an egg of myrrh, which was deposited in Heliopolis (“city of the sun” in Greek) on the altar of Ra, the Sun God. In the Egyptian myth, the bird was known as Bennu and was sometimes represented on sarcophagi as a heron. Russian folklore has its counterpart to the phoenix in the firebird.

  In Andersen’s story “Garden of Eden,” the South Wind reports the following about the phoenix: “I saw the phoenix set fire to its nest, and I just sat there while it burned like a Hindu’s widow. The dry branches made a crackling sound, and there was smoke and perfume! Finally, everything went up in flames, and the old phoenix burned to ashes. But its glowing red-hot egg was lying in the fire, and then burst with a loud noise, and the young one flew out. Now it rules over all birds and is the only phoenix in the world.”

  3. beneath the copper mountains of Falun. Located in the central part of Sweden, the great copper mines of Falun were put into operation as early as the twelfth century. Andersen traveled to Sweden (where there were no “roaring cannon”) in 1849, when fighting erupted between Denmark and Prussia. He published a travel memoir, Pictures of Sweden, in 1851, documenting his appreciation of the Swedish landscape. The copper mines in Sweden also served as the setting for The Mines of Falun, a short story by E.T.A. Hoffmann. Andersen’s inventory of geographical sites, including Falun, is intended to underscore that the myth shows no signs of cultural fatigue.

  4. seated in the carriage of Thespis. Renowned as the inventor of tragedy, Thespis was born in Attica in the sixth century B.C. He is said to have introduced the notion of an actor (as opposed to the chorus), as well as costumes, masks, and make-up, which he carried through Athens in a cart for his street performances. The term thespian, denoting actors and actresses, comes from his name.

  5. looking like Odin’s raven. Odin, the chief god of Norse mythology, has two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, and they fly all over the world to bring news back to him. (The melodious bird in Andersen’s “Nightingale” takes on a similar role for the Emperor in China at the end of that story.)

  6. it fluttered through the halls of the Wartburg. Wartburg Castle, built early in the eleventh century, overlooks the town of Eisenach, in Thuringia, Germany. It became the site of courtly culture, in particular the so-called Sängerkrieg, or Contest of Minstrels, at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Participants included the renowned poets Walter von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach. The Sängerkrieg is at the center of Richard Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser.

  7. It sang the “Marseillaise” to you. The “Marseillaise,” now France’s national anthem, was written and composed in 1792. It was sung during the French Revolution by troops from Marseille upon their arrival in Paris. By Andersen’s time, it had already become the international revolutionary anthem.

  The Goblin and the Grocer

  Nissen hos spækhøkeren

  Historier. Anden Samling, 1853

  Despite the fact that both gob
lin and grocer appear in the title, the goblin is the real hero of the tale. Oddly, Andersen has a cast of three but does not include the student/poet in the title. The goblin, a creature of fantasy, bridges the student’s world of poetic visions and the grocer’s world of commerce and commodities. He lives out the dream of receiving material sustenance from the grocer (housing and a bowl of porridge) and spiritual nourishment from the poet (the visions that emerge from the pages of books).

  “The Goblin and the Grocer” was included in Andrew Lang’s famous fairy-tale series of books for children published at the end of the nineteenth century and still in print today. And yet it has not attained the canonical status of other tales by Andersen, in part because it is less a fairy tale for children than an allegory of reading for adults. The story, written in 1849, around the time that Andersen’s short stories were becoming increasingly occupied with art, celebrates the power of words on a page to transform themselves into shimmering visions of beauty and also extols the pleasures of witnessing the act of reading. While the student is reading from a “tattered book,” his tiny attic room transforms itself into a luminous paradise, filled with sights, sounds, and aromas. The goblin, solely by observing the student, is able to experience for himself the visionary power of the book. Drawn to the material and to the spiritual, the goblin finds a way to have his porridge and eat it too.

  There was once a student who was living in a garret.1 He owned absolutely nothing. There was once also a grocer, who was living on the ground floor of that very house, and he owned the whole place. The household goblin2 was devoted to the grocer, for every Christmas Eve he was given a bowl of porridge with a big pat of butter right in the middle of it. The grocer had the goods, and so the goblin stayed in his shop, and that is all very instructive.

  One evening the student came in through the back door to buy some candles and cheese. He had no one to run his errands, and that’s why he was there in person. He found what he was looking for, paid up, and the grocer and his wife nodded “Good evening.” The wife was a woman who could do more than just nod, for she had the gift of gab. The student nodded in return, but he stopped in his tracks when he started reading what was on the piece of paper wrapped around his cheese. It was a page torn out of an old book that ought never to have been torn up, for it was a book of poetry.3

  “There’s more of it over here!” the grocer said. “I gave an old woman some coffee beans for it. If you’re willing to pay me a couple of pennies, the rest of it is yours.”

  “If I may,” said the student. “I’ll take the book instead of the cheese. I don’t mind eating my bread without any cheese on it. It would be a sin to tear the book completely apart. You’re a splendid fellow, a practical man, but you know about as much about poetry as that tub over there.”

  Now that was a rude way to speak, especially with the tub there, but the grocer laughed and the student laughed too. After all, it was all in jest. But the goblin was offended that anyone would dare say such things to the grocer, to a man who not only owned the house but also sold the very best butter around.

  That night, after the shop had closed and everyone was in bed but the student, the goblin stole into the grocer’s bedroom and borrowed the tongue of the grocer’s wife, who had no use for it while she was sleeping. Any object on which he placed the tongue suddenly had a voice4 and could pour out its thoughts and feelings as fluently as the grocer’s wife herself. But only one object at a time could use the tongue, and that was a blessing, for otherwise they would have spoken at the same time.

  First the goblin placed the tongue on the tub in which old newspapers were kept. “Is it really true,” asked the goblin, “that you know nothing about poetry?”

  “Of course I know about poetry,” the tub replied. “It’s the stuff that they put near the bottom of the page in the newspapers, and sometimes it gets cut out! I dare say I have more poetry in me than that student, and I’m a mere tub by comparison to the grocer.”

  Next, the goblin put the tongue on the coffee grinder, and did it ever chatter away! He placed it on the butter vat and on the cash box. Everyone agreed with the tub, and you really have to respect the opinion of the majority.

  “I’ll give that student a piece of my mind!” and with those words he tiptoed up the stairs to the garret where the student was living. A candle was still burning, and the goblin peeped through the keyhole5 and could see that the student was reading from the tattered book that he had brought upstairs from the shop.

  How extraordinarily bright it was in the room! A dazzling ray of light rose up from the book6 and transformed itself into a tree trunk that spread its branches over the student. Each leaf on the tree was a fresh green color, and every flower was the face of a beautiful maiden, some with dark, sparkling eyes, others with marvelous clear blue eyes. Every fruit on the tree was a shining star, and the room was filled with music and song.

  ARTHUR RACKHAM

  The goblin peers through the keyhole of the door to the student’s garret. The book he is reading illuminates the dark attic space and creates greenery. Down in the cellar the various kitchen utensils are gossiping, and on the ground floor, the grocer, who is considerably more prosperous than the student, blows out the candle, creating darkness instead of light.

  The little goblin had never dreamed that such splendor could exist, let alone that he would ever have the chance to see it and listen to it. He stood there on tiptoe, gazing for all he was worth until the light in the garret finally went out. The student must have blown out the candle and gone to bed, but the little goblin stayed right where he was, for the music continued softly and splendidly as a lovely lullaby to put the student to sleep.

  “There’s no other place on earth like this one,” the goblin exclaimed. “I would never have dreamed this was possible. That’s it! I’m going to live here with the student.” He stopped to think—for he was a creature of reason—and then he sighed deeply: “Of course the student doesn’t have any porridge at all.” And so he went back down the stairs to the grocer, and it was a good thing too, for the tub had nearly worn out the tongue of the grocer’s wife. It had first turned to the left and blurted out all the things it had been holding in. Then, just as it was about to turn around to do the honors from the right side, the goblin walked in and returned the tongue to the grocer’s wife. From that moment on, the entire shop, from the cash box on right down to the kindling wood, formed all their ideas based on what the tub had to say. Their respect for it was so great and their confidence ran so high that when the grocer read the art and theater reviews in the evening paper, they were all convinced that the opinions in it had come straight from the tub.

  But the little goblin was no longer satisfied with the wisdom and knowledge that he had picked up from eavesdropping downstairs. As soon as light shone down from the garret, he felt as if the rays were great anchor ropes drawing him upward and that he had to take a look through the keyhole. He was overwhelmed by the same sense of the sublime we experience when we are on the endlessly churning ocean and God passes over it in the form of a storm. Tears came to his eyes, and, although he did not know why he was crying, he was overcome by strange sensations that warmed his heart. How fabulous it would be to sit with the student beneath that tree of light! He realized that that was impossible, and he was therefore perfectly content to peer through the keyhole. When the autumn wind began to send wintry blasts through the trapdoor leading up to the attic, the goblin was still there every evening on the cold landing. It was dreadfully cold, but the little fellow didn’t notice until the light went out in the garret and the music dissipated in the wind. Ouf! then he began to shiver and would crawl down to his own little cozy corner, where it was pleasant and comfortable. And when Christmas came around, along with the bowl of porridge and big pat of butter in it, why, then the grocer was king.

  In the middle of the night, the goblin was awakened by a hullabaloo. People were banging on the windows, and the watchman was blasting away on his horn. A
house was on fire,7 and the entire city seemed to be ablaze. Was it the grocer’s house or was it next door? Where could it be? Everybody was terrified! The grocer’s wife was in such a panic that she took off her golden earrings and put them in her pocket so that she could at least rescue something. The grocer ran to get his documents and permits, and the servant ran for the black silk mantilla that she had managed to buy from her savings. Everyone wanted to rescue what they treasured the most, and that was true of the little goblin as well. With a leap and a bound he made it upstairs and landed in the room of the student, who was standing calmly at the open window, watching the fire that was raging in the house across the street. The goblin snatched the book lying on the table, tucked it in his red cap, and clutched it in his arms. The treasure of the house had been saved. And then he raced out, first up to the roof, and then right up onto the chimney. There he sat, lit up by the flames of the house across the street, clutching with both his hands the cap holding the treasure.

  Suddenly he realized what he truly desired and to whom his heart belonged. But once the fire had been put out, and the goblin had a chance to think long and hard about it—well!

  “I’ll simply have to divide myself between them,” he declared. “That way, each one will have a little something. How can I give up the grocer? He’s the one with the porridge.”

  And that was spoken in truly human terms! If we’re really honest about it, then we have to admit that the world is like that. The rest of us would end up at the grocer’s too. We need the porridge.

  1. There was once a student who was living in a garret. Impoverished students appear frequently in Andersen’s work, and they are often associated with poetry, as is the case with this story and with “Auntie Toothache.” It is no accident that the “poetic” student lives in aerial regions, while the more materialistic grocer (grocers are always slightly vulgar for Andersen in their preoccupation with sustenance for the body) inhabits the ground floor.