Abstract
Though the Grimms made important discoveries in their research on ancient German literature and customs, they were neither the founders of folklore as a study in Germany, nor were they the first to begin collecting and publishing folk and fairy tales. In fact, from the beginning their principal concern was to uncover the etymological and linguistic truths that bound the German people together and were expressed in their laws and customs. As they progressed in their research and gradually realized through their historical investigations how deep the international and intercul-tural connections of the tales were, they altered many of their beliefs about what the “true” folk tale meant while at the same time they laid the basis for the exploration of national folklore in other countries. The fame and influence of the Brothers Grimm as collectors of folk and fairy tales must be understood in this context, and even here, chance played a major role in their destiny.
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Notes
Reprinted in Heinz Rölleke, Die Märchen der Brüder Grimm (Munich: Artemis, 1987), 63–69.
Jacob Grimm, Circular wegen Aufsammlung der Volkspoesie, ed. Ludwig Denecke, afterword Kurt Ranke (Kassel: Brüder Grimm-Museum, 1968), 3–4.
For excellent accounts of the sources of the Grimms’ collection and the background of the informants, see Wilhelm Schoof, Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Grimmschen Märchen (Hamburg: Hauswedell, 1959), 59–130; Heinz Rölleke’s three essays, “Die ‘stockhessischen Märchen’ der ‘Alten Marie’” (1975), “Von Menschen denen wir Grimms’ Märchen verdanken” (1987), and “Neue Ergebnisse zu den Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm” in Die Märchen der Brüder Grimm: Quellen und Studien (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2000), 9–22, 23–36, 37–44;
and Christa Kamenetsky, The Brothers Grimm and Their Critics: Folktales and the Quest for Meaning (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1993), 113–177.
See Albert Schindehütte, ed., Krauses Grimm’sche Märchen (Kassel: Stauda, 1985). This book contains all of Kraus’s tales, along with biographical and historical information and documents edited by Heinz Rölleke and Heinz Vonjahr.
Heinz Rölleke, Die älteste Märchensammlung der Brüder Grimm (Cologny-Geneva: Martin Bodmer Fondation, 1975).
Gunhild Ginschel, “Der Märchenstil Jacob Grimms,” in Jacob Grimm: Zur Wiederkehr seines Todestages, ed. Wilhelm Fraenger and Wolfgang Steinitz (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1963), 131–168.
Walter Killy, ed., Kinder-und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1962), 150–151.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, ed. and trans. Jack Zipes (New York: Bantam, 1987), 8–9.
For a thorough discussion about the sources for this tale, see Heinz Rölleke, “Märchen von einem, der auszog, das Fürchten zu lernen: Zur Überlieferung und Bedeutung des KJM 4,” in Die Märchen der Brüder Grimm: Quellen und Studien (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2000), 136–148.
See Annemarie Verweyen, “‘Wenig Bücher sind mit solcher Lust entstanden …’,” in Börsenblatt 77 (September 27, 1985): 2465–2473.
See the important work by Hannjost Lixfeld, Folklore and Fascism: The Reich Institute for German Volkskunde, ed. and trans. James R. Dow (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).
Cf. the chapter, “The Fight Over Fairy-Tale Discourse: Family, Friction, and Socialization in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany,” in Jack Zipes, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion (New York: Methuen, 1983), 134–169, and James R. Dow and Hannjost Lixfeld, eds., The Nazification of an Academic Discipline: Folklore in the Third Reich (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).
Cf. Jack Zipes, The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood (1983; rev. and exp. second ed. New York: Routledge, 1993).
In particular, see Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (New York: Knopf, 1976).
For an excellent summary of the psychoanalytic scholarship, see Alan Dundes, “The Psychoanalytic Study of Folklore,” Annals of Scholarship 3 (1985): 1–42.
Géza Roheim, “Psychoanalysis and the Folk-Tale,” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 3 (1922): 180–186.
C.J. Jung, “The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy Tales,” in Psyche and Symbol, ed. Violet S. de Laszlo (New York: Anchor, 1958), 61–112.
Aniela Jaffé, Bilder und Symbole aus E. T. A. Hoffmanns Märchen “Der goldene Topf”, (second rev. ed., Zurich: Gerstenberg, 1978).
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Cleveland: Meridian, 1956) and The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension (New York: HarperCollins, 1990).
Marie von Franz, Problems of the Feminine in Fairytales (New York: Spring, 1972).
Verena Kast, Mann und Frau im Märchen: Eine psychologische Deutung (Olten, Switzerland: Walter, 1983) and Familienkonflikte im Märchen: Eine psychologische Deutung (Olten, Switzerland: Walter, 1984).
See also Mario Jacoby, Verena Kast, and Ingrid Riedel, Witches, Ogres, and the Devil’s Daughter: Encounters with Evil in Fairy Tales, trans. Michael H. Kohn (Boston: Shambhala, 1992).
Erich Fromm, The Forgotten Language (New York: Grove, 1957).
Julius Heuscher, A Psychiatric Study of Fairy Tales (Springfield, Il: Thomas, 1963).
André Favat, Child and Tale: The Origins of Interest (Urbana, Il.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1977).
Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, ed. Louis Wagner and Alan Dundes, second rev. ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968).
Max Lüthi, Das europäische Volksmärchen, second rev. ed. (Bern: Francke, 1960); and Once Upon a Time: On the Nature of Fairy Tales (New York: Ungar, 1970).
Ludwig Denecke, Jacob Grimm und sein Bruder Wilhelm (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1971).
Lothar Bluhm, Grimm-Philologie: Beiträge zur Märchenforschung und Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1995).
Dieter Richter and Johannes Merkel, Märchen, Phantasie und soziales Lernen (Berlin: Basis, 1974).
Christa Bürger, “Die soziale Funktion volkstümlicher Erzählformen— Sage und Märchen,” in Projekt Deutschunterricht 6, ed. Heinz Ide (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1971): 26–56.
Bernd Wollenweber, “Märchen und Sprichwort,” in Projekt Deutschunterricht 6, ed. Heinz Ide (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1974): 12–92.
Cf. Ernst Bloch, The Utopian Function of Art and Literature, trans. Jack Zipes and Frank Mecklenburg (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987). This volume contains two essays that specifically deal with fairy tales, as well as essays that incorporate Bloch’s notion of anticipatory illumination.
Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 42.
Jürgen Kocka, ed., Bürger und Bürgerlichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987).
Cf. Jacques Barchilon, Le Conte Merveilleux Français de 1690 à 1190 (Paris: Champion, 1975);
Lewis C. Seifert, Fairy Tales, Sexuality and Gender in France, 1690–1715: Nostalgic Utopias (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996);
Patricia Hannon, Fabulous Identities: Women’s Fairy Tales in Seventeenth-Century France (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998);
Shawn Jarvis and Jeannine Blackwell, eds., The Queen’s Mirror: Fairy Tales by German Women, 1180–1900 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001);
and Elizabeth Wanning Harries, Twice Upon a Time: Women Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
Cf. Jack Zipes, ed., Don’t Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England (New York: Methuen, 1986);
Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers (London: Chatto & Windus, 1995).
Simon Bronner, “The Americanization of the Brothers Grimm,” in Following Tradition: Folklore in the Discourse of American Culture (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1998), 187.
Many other critics are even more severe than I am. For example, see Henry A. Giroux, The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence (Lanham, Md: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999).
For the most balanced study of Disney, his life, and the development of the Disney corporation, see Steven Watts, The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997). Recently Janet Wasko has published an excellent critical and analytical study, Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy (Cambridge: Polity, 2001).
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© 2002 Jack Zipes
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Zipes, J. (2002). The Origins and Reception of the Tales. In: The Brothers Grimm. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-09873-3_2
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