Abstract
The bicentennial celebrations of the birthdays of the Brothers Grimm have long since come to an end, and it is time to take stock. Did we really learn something new about the Grimms and their tales during those two years of celebrations and commemorations held fifteen years ago? Or did we honor the Grimms merely by praising them in a conventional and uncritical manner, and did we thereby do them a disservice? Who did the praising and why? This last question is most significant, for numerous associations, institutions, and nations organized ceremonial conferences and symposiums to honor the Grimms, or published books and articles about their significance. Such widespread tribute to the Grimms and their work certainly indicated to what extent the Grimms, and their tales in particular, have transcended German culture to become vital components in the cultural heritages of different nations. In fact, one could probably argue that the Grimms’ tales, either in their literally translated editions or in multifarious adaptations, and especially in their mass-mediated forms by Disney and other cinematic corporations, play a crucial role in the socialization of children throughout much of the modern world.
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Notes
Dieter Hennig and Bernhard Lauer, eds., Die Brüder Grimm: Dokumente ihres Lebens und Wirkens (Kassel: Weber & Weidemeyer, 1985).
Ingrid Koszinowski and Vera Leuschner, eds., Ludwig Emil Grimm 1790–1863: Maler, Zeichner, Radierer (Kassel: Weber & Weidemeyer, 1985).
Hans Bernd Harder and Ekkehard Kaufmann, eds., Die Brüder Grimm in ihrer amtlichen und politischen Tätigkeit (Kassel: Weber & Weidemeyer, 1985).
Wilhelm Solms, ed., Das selbstverständliche Wunder: Beiträge germanistischer Märchenforschung (Marburg: Hitzroth, 1986).
Irma Hildebrandt, Es waren ihrer Fünf: Die Brüder Grimm und ihre Familie (Cologne: Diederichs, 1984).
Gabriele Seitz, Die Brüder Grimm: Leben—Werk—Zeit (Munich: Winkler, 1984).
Ludwig Denecke, ed., Brüder Grimm Gedenken 6 und 7, vol. 6 (Marburg: Elwert, 1986) and vol. 7 (Marburg: Elwert, 1987).
Heinz Rölleke, “Wo das Wünschen noch geholfen haf”: Gesammelte Aufsätze zu den “Kinder- und Hausmärchen” der Brüder Grimm (Bonn: Bouvier, 1985).
Heinz Rölleke, Die Märchen der Brüder Grimm (Munich: Artemis, 1985).
Heinz Rölleke, ed., Kleine Ausgabe (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1985).
Heinz Rölleke and Ulrike Marquardt, eds., Kinder- und Hausmärchen Gesammelt durch die Brüder Grimm: Vergrösserter Nachdruck der zweibändigen Erstausgabe von 1812 und 1815 nach dem Handexemplar des Brüder Grimm-Museums Kassel mit sämtlichen handschriftlichen Korrekturen und Nachträgen der Brüder Grimm sowie einem Ergänzungsheft (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986).
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Verena Kast, Wege aus Angst und Symbiose: Märchen psychologisch gedeutet (Olten, Switzerland: Walter, 1982); Through Emotions to Maturity: Psychological Readings of Fairy Tales, trans. Douglas Whitcher (New York: Fromm International, 1993).
Eugen Drewermann, Das Mädchen ohne Hände (Freiburg: Olten, 1981).
Eugen Drewermann, Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot (Freiburg: Olten, 1983).
Eugen Drewermann, Die kluge Else, Rapunzel (Freiburg: Olten, 1986).
Hildegunde Wöller, Aschenputtel: Energie der Liebe (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1984).
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Ursula Eschenbach, Hänsel und Gretel: Der Sohn im mütterlichen Dunkel (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1986).
Carl Mallet, Kopf Ab! Gewalt im Märchen (Hamburg: Rasch und Röhring, 1985).
Elisabeth Müller, Das Bild der Frau im Märchen: Analysen und erzieherische Betrachtungen (Munich: Profil, 1986).
Sigrid Früh and Rainer Wehse, eds., Die Frau im Märchen (Kassel: Röth, 1985).
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Uta Claus and Rolf Kutschera, Total Tote Hose: 12 Bockstarke Märchen (Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn, 1984).
Heinz Langer, Grimmige Märchen (Munich: Hugendubel, 1984).
Chris Schrauff, Der Wolf und seine Steine (Hannover: SOAK-Verlag, 1986).
Cf. Christa Bürger, “Die soziale Funktion volkstümlicher Erzählformen— Sage und Märchen,” in Projekt Deutschunterricht 1, ed. Heinz Ide (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1971), 26–56;
Bernd Wollenweber, “Märchen und Sprichwort,” in Projektunterricht 6, ed. Heinz Ide (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1974): 12–92;
Dieter Richter and Johannes Merkel, Märchen, Phantasie und soziales Lernen (Berlin: Basis, 1974).
See Werner Ogris, “Jacob Grimm und die Rechtsgeschichte,” in Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 67–96.
Cf. Rudolf Freudenberg, “Erzähltechnik und ‘Märchenton’” in Das selbstverständliche Wunder: Beiträge germanistischer Märchenforschung, ed. Wilhelm Solms (Marburg: Hitzeroh, 1986), 121–142;
and Wolfgang Mieder, “Sprichwörtliche Schwundformen des Märchens. Zum 200. Geburtstag der Brüder Grimm,” Proverbium 3 (1986): 257–272.
Dieter Arendt, “Dümmlinge, Däumlinge und Diebe im Märchen—oder: ‘drei Söhne, davon hieß der Jüngste der Dümmling’ (KHM 64),” Diskussion Deutsch 91 (October 1986): 465–478.
Gertrud Jungblut, “Märchen der Brüder Grimm—Feministisch gelesen,” Diskussion Deutsch 91 (October 1986): 497–510.
Heide Göttner-Abendroth, Die Göttin und ihr Heros (Munich: Frauenoffensive, 1980).
Cf. Jack Zipes, The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood (South Hadley: Bergin & Garvey, 1983).
See Alice Miller, Du sollst nicht merken: Variationen über das Paradies-Thema (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983), 294–300.
Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child, trans. Ruth Ward (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 27.
C. Alan Dundes, Life Is Like a Chicken Coop Ladder: A Portrait of German Culture Through Folklore (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984). Dundes tries to explain some aspects of the German national character by understanding the German interest in anal practices and products as expressed in proverbs, slang, and folk customs. “I believe Mayhew was on the right track and that he correctly anticipated psychoanalytic theory which postulates a connection or correlation between infant care and adult personality. The continued use of the German expression ‘Der ist falsch gewickelt’ (He was swaddled wrongly) suggesting that a misguided individual was damaged as an infant through poor child care hints that the folk themselves may have sensed the connection between infant care and adult personality. One might suppose, for example, that the important twentieth-century German notion of Lebensraum (living space) might reflect something more than political history or the particularities of the personality of Hitler. Lebensraum may conceivably go back to the painful discomfort of severe swaddling techniques. As an infant seeks more ‘living space,’ so adults in the same culture might find great appeal in a concept that offered the nation (and its citizens) a chance to move around and spread out,” 101–102. Though overstated, Dundes’s thesis is worth pursuing, since there may indeed be a connection between swaddling and the raising of children in Germany and the depiction of abuse and cruel treatment of children in the Grimms’ tales and also in children’s books like the famous Struwwelpeter (1845), or in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales that began appearing in 1835.
Alan Dundes, “The Psychoanalytic Study of the Grimms’ Tales with Special Reference to ‘The Maiden Without Hands’ (AT 706),” Germanic Review 42 (Spring, 1987): 54.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, trans. and ed. Jack Zipes (New York: Bantam, 1987), 120.
Walter Killy, ed., Kinder- und Hausmärchen in der ersten Gestalt (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1962), 91.
Cf. Jeffrey M. Masson, Assault on Truth: Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1984).
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© 2002 Jack Zipes
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Zipes, J. (2002). Recent Psychological Approaches with Some Questions about the Abuse of Children. In: The Brothers Grimm. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-09873-3_7
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