“You paint when you speak”: On the creative process of Hans Christian Andersen

Abstract

The article analyses the creative process of Hans Christian Andersen. The author focuses on the writer’s early years and then juxtaposes them with his mature creative period. The author draws attention to problems in interpreting the translated works, demonstrating their nature based on various endings of “The Snow Queen”. Then she analyses what, how and with what means Andersen wrote. The section devoted to Andersen’s journals analyses his goals and aspirations and how his travel records later translated into his literature. In the next part, she presents the process seen through the eyes of the writer himself and his critics. Her conclusions emphasise the intense sensuality of Andersen’s works, his connection with the spoken language and the writer’s late conviction that he managed to make good use of his God-given gifts.